Corrected: Cathay Pacific on self-boarding tech at Hong Kong airport

Correction: Cathay spokesperson says the SCMP story is not accurate. “Unfortunately, the story in the South China Morning Post is not accurate.  Our representative simply confirmed our interest in the concept of a self-boarding device, not that any plans were underway.  Any infrastructure changes would be an initiative of the airport authority.”

Original curated post: Cathay Pacific is considering installing “self-boarding” gates at Hong Kong airport…to allow passengers to board without a manual document check by ground staff. Face-detection cameras at the checkpoints will recognise the passenger using biometric technology, freeing up airline staff.

In an experiment by Lufthansa at Frankfurt Airport, the airline found that using four self-boarding devices and two ground staff enabled it to halve the embarkation time for about 450 passengers to 20 minutes.

Air China is putting on trial two self-boarding devices at Beijing Capital International Airport. Kaba is helping set up similar self-boarding programmes in Singapore and Australia.