A.I is rapidly becoming a bigger part of our lives, and different industries are conforming to the change. But how is aviation responding to the ever-increasing utilization of A.I? Will there be completely A.I-automated airports? Lets find out.
Firstly, we must first think about how A.I can even be used in airports. It definitely can’t be used to replace air-traffic-controllers, considering that the role requires good human interaction and understanding, which A.I doesn’t see to have. So how can A.I be used in Airports?
Facial Recognition And Biometric Check-In
You know the traditional check-in experience, right? Be at the airport 2-3 hours early, find the check in desk, walk through the long queue, get to the front, verify passport and booking, give in your luggage, tag your luggage, get to the security screening, take your things out into the trays, then get to the passport control, and then finally get to your boarding gate, at which you have to queue up. Yet again…
However, with A.I, that hour-2 hour long process can be dramatically reduced to only ~30 minutes.
How, you may ask?
Well, it’s a series of careful changes designed to reduce the time spent in human interaction.
For example, instead of spending 10-15 minutes at the check-in and baggage drop, you can reduce that time to around 2 minutes by just installing lots of self-service kiosks, and having A.I systems quickly check your bookings, tickets, passports ect.
Real World Examples
- At Heathrow Airport, A.I is used to predict passenger surges, which helps passenger experience managers control the flow of passengers to avoid crowding and long queues. Companies value time, and so does Heathrow airport, check out my post on why aircraft need to be fuel efficient, and how this helps airlines save millions yearly.
- Dubai Airport – The A.I facial-recognition “Smart Tunnel” lets passengers walk straight through passport control without having to stop. This saves lots of time.
- Delta Airlines – (still testing) biometric self-boarding gates powered by AI.
Is it all positives though?
When we hear that A.I will optimize lots of things in the future to save us time, we should first consider the human impact that it will have. Reading this post, did the thought ever come to your mind, “what would happen to all those thousands of people employed by airports to do all these things?”
I’m assuming not.
This is a growing concern for a lot of people, and airlines are afraid to address it. Let us know your thoughts about this situation in the comments. Should airlines choose to save money and save time for passengers, or should they release lots of people from their jobs? What other consequences would this lead to? (tip: think economically!)
Humanity seems to have a love-hate relationship with A.I. We love it when it helps us complete daily tasks, we love it when it helps us write essays, but we hate it when we think of the prospect of losing our jobs to it.
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