Frankfurt Airport will roll out a system for facial recognition of all passengers in the coming months. Until now, only Lufthansa and Star Alliance customers could pass through passport control this way, but this will soon apply to everyone.

The system is called Smart Path and has proven successful in use at Star Alliance in recent years. Frankfurt therefore also wants to make it available to passengers flying with other airlines.

In practice, it works like a mobile phone: the unique features of each face are first recorded during registration, in the app or at a 'kiosk' at the airport. The passenger will then be recognized by the Smart Path camera upon arrival or departure for non-Schengen flights and will no longer have to show a passport.

Frankfurt wants to equip at least half of all check-in machines, passport control and gate boarding with this technology in the coming months, and it should be fully rolled out by 2024. The old way of manual checks also remains, for passengers who prefer that.

The Star Alliance Biometrics platform, on which the technology is based, was launched in November 2020 at the Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna hubs. Hamburg Airport also received the facility in April 2022.

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* Origin: AVIATION ECHO HQ (2:292/854)