SEPANG: Physical travel documents such as airline tickets and boarding passes may soon be a thing of the past for passengers at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) with the introduction of facial recognition under the Single Token Journey initiative.
Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd's (MAHB) group chief executive officer Datuk Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh said facial recognition will be a single-token biometric identification authentication that will take them through the entire airport journey without having to show their boarding passes at all touchpoints from check-in right until the boarding gates.
He said that the Single Token Journey is a major component of the organisation's Airports 4.0 initiative.
"This initiative was among several identified critical projects that we forged ahead despite constraints caused by the pandemic.
"Apart from the obvious benefit of improving our service levels to passengers by reducing airport processing time, it will also enable our passengers to go through a completely contactless experience and enhance their safety at the airport within the parameters of the new travel norms.
"Additionally, it will also minimise instances of fraudulent identity use," he said in a statement today.
The first phase of the technology roll out is expected to be completed in the first half of 2021 where 50 self-check-in kiosks, 20 check-in counters and 56 eGates at security checkpoints and boarding gates at both KLIA Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 will be equipped with facial recognition technology.
The authentication process is expected to take about five seconds for each passenger at every touchpoint thus shortening the airport journey considerably.
He said the technology will also be integrated with the MYairports app where passengers can enrol their facial authentication even before they arrive at the airport itself.
Integration with the immigration system will also enable foreigners to utilise the Immigration Autogates instead of queuing at the counters.
Future implementation may also include other touchpoints such as retail purchases as well as access to airline lounges," he said.
"Our aim is to make the airport future-ready especially when travel picks up again.
"We are making this technology available at the airport because we also need to restore confidence among air travel passengers and to gain the cooperation of our airline partners to integrate their processes to adapt to this available technology," he added.