Miami Airport to See US’s Largest-ever Biometric Boarding Deployment

The Miami International Airport will soon be the site of the largest-ever deployment of biometric boarding gates in the US, according to new reports.

The biometric boarding system is expected to be fully deployed in 2023, allowing travelers to confirm their identity before boarding through a contactless face scan. The biometric boarding system will be available across all of the airport’s more than 130 gates.

MIA’s administrators have previously experimented with biometric technology in collaboration with US Customs and Border Protection. In 2018, the Miami-Dade Aviation Department announced that MIA’s Concourse E for international arrivals would be the first in the country to use facial recognition to speed up passport verification; and in 2020 the CBP announced that MIA had become the latest site of deployment for Simplified Arrival, a face-based border screening program that has continued to expand to more border checkpoints across the country.

The planned biometric boarding system seems aimed at further enhancing the travel experience and to speed up throughput as Florida continues to see booming tourism.

“We look forward to elevating our passenger experience with this state-of-the-art boarding solution,” explained MIA Director and CEO Ralph Cutié. “MIA is now the busiest U.S. airport for international travel and continues to set new records each month for passenger growth. Biometric boarding is one of the major steps we are taking to pave the way for additional growth in the years to come.”

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine echoed the sentiment. “The launch of biometric boarding at MIA is the latest way that Miami-Dade County is leveraging technology to improve customer service and simplify operations,” she said, adding that “this cutting-edge innovation that will streamline the boarding process for our passengers.”

The airport’s tech partner in the project is NEC, which has also provided temperature screening technology for airports in Hawaii during the pandemic. The VP of Aviation for NEC Corporation of America, Jason Van Sice, spoke to FindBiometrics about the importance of biometric passenger processing in air travel earlier this year.

Sources: 7News Miami, Airways Magazine, International Airport Review

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May 17, 2022 – by Alex Perala