With ballooning wait times in airports around the world, travellers are eager to spend less time queuing to check in for their flights – and they’re willing to use biometric identification to do so, according to a new IATA survey of airline passengers.

The sentiment emerged from the International Air Transport Association’s polling of 13,579 passengers from 186 countries, with the 2021 Global Passenger Survey designed to provide insight into what passengers would like from their air travel experience.

“Passengers have spoken and want technology to work harder, so they spend less time ‘being processed’ or standing in queues,” says IATA’s Sr VP Nick Careen. “And they are willing to use biometric data if it delivers this result. Before traffic ramps-up, we have a window of opportunity to ensure a smooth return to travel post pandemic and deliver long-term efficiency improvements for passengers, airlines, airports and governments.”

Among the key survey results:

• 73% of passengers are willing to share their biometric data to improve airport processes (up from 46% in 2019).

• 88% will share immigration information prior to departure for expedited processing.

While just over a third of passengers (36%) have experienced the use of biometric data when travelling, of these, 86% were satisfied with the experience.

Data protection remains a key issue with 56% indicating concern about data breaches, prompting passengers to desire clarity on who their data is being shared with (52%) and how it is used/processed (51%).

When it comes to wait times:

• 55% of passengers identified queuing at boarding as a top area for improvement.

• 41% of passengers identified queuing at security screening as a top priority for improvement.

• 38% of passenger identified queuing time at border control/immigration as a top area for improvement.

IATA says that with additional document checks for COVID-19, processing time at airports is taking longer. Pre-COVID-19, the average passengers spent 1.5 hours in travel processes (check-in, security, border control, customs, and baggage claim) while current data indicates that airport processing times have “ballooned” to three hours during peak time with travel volumes at only about 30% of pre-COVID-19 levels. The greatest increases are at check-in and border control (emigration and immigration) where travel health credentials are being checked mainly as paper documents.

This exceeds the time that passengers want to spend on processes at the airport. The survey found that:

• 85% of passengers want to spend less than 45 mins on processes at the airport if they are travelling with only hand luggage.

• 90% of passengers want to spend less than one hour on processes at the airport when travelling with a checked bag.

Solutions

IATA says it is working with industry stakeholders and has two mature programs that can support a successful ramping-up of aviation post-pandemic and provide travellers with the expedited experience they are demanding, including adoption of the IATA Travel Pass to help manage the complex myriad of travel health credentials that governments require.

According to the airline association, the app offers a safe and secure way for travellers to check the requirements for their journey, receive test results and scan their vaccine certificates, verify that these meet the destination and transit requirements and share these effortlessly with health officials and airlines prior to departure and using e-gates. This would reduce queuing and congestion for document checks – to the benefit of travellers, airlines, airports, and governments.

Another IATA initiative is One ID, designed to help transition the industry towards a day when passengers can move from curb to gate using a single biometric travel token such as a face, fingerprint, or iris scan.

“We cannot just revert to how things were in 2019 and expect our customers to be satisfied,” says Careen. “Pre-pandemic we were preparing to take self-service to the next level with One ID. The crisis makes its twin-promises of efficiency and cost-savings even more urgent. And we absolutely need technologies like IATA Travel Pass to re-enable self-service or the recovery will be overwhelmed by paper document checks. The GPS results are yet another proof point that change is needed.”