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The Challenges of Today’s Travel Experience
The travel industry is facing immense challenges as passenger volumes are expected to double by 2041. However, airport capacity will not be able to keep up with this growth due to space constraints, political reasons, and the impracticality of building ever-larger airports.
Multiple bottlenecks lead to passenger frustrations and backups while resulting in higher labor costs for airports and airlines. For example:
- Passenger Identification checks: The current manual process of verifying a passenger’s identity at multiple points
- Document checks for admissibility and boarding: Airlines have to verify passengers meet all destination and transit regulations. Border control performing immigration and emigration checks
- Airport touchpoint access checks: Passengers must present documents to proceed at multiple locations from check-in and baggage drop-off, security and border control, boarding gates, and lounge access.
These multiple checks require airlines, airports, and border control authorities to perform manual checks that tie up staff, resources, and space. The result often leads to long queues, congestion, and poor passenger experience.
There have been some improvements, such as online check-in, self-service kiosks, automated bag drops, gates for rapid security checks, and self-boarding — but these are fragmented based on localized solutions. As such, these options are not scalable for passengers who must navigate different access methods at different airports. There is a lack of interoperability that will require an investment in infrastructure and technology to resolve.
Without changes, congestion is only going to get worse as few airports will have the capacity to handle increasing traffic.
To accommodate the projected surge in travelers, the industry must implement automation, digitalization, and more efficient processes.
The solution lies in enabling an end-to-end contactless journey, where passengers can complete most processes remotely and seamlessly move through airport touchpoints using biometric identification. This whitepaper explores the passenger perspective on this transition, the steps being taken to realize the vision of contactless travel, and how an end-to-end solution provides a more efficient process and a more seamless experience for passengers.
The Passenger Perspective: Convenience and Speed Are Top Priorities
IATA’s Global Passenger Surveys revealed that travelers’ key frustrations are queuing for security and border control. There is also a strong preference for completing immigration procedures before arrival. Another significant challenge is the myriad of different visa requirements that can frustrate customers and cause problems for passengers and airlines if the right documentation isn’t available at departure.
Complex immigration/visa requirements
36% of passengers say they have been discouraged from traveling to a particular destination because of the immigration requirements. The main deterrents were the complexity (49%) and time (19%) it took to navigate confusing information and fulfill requirements. Passengers also cited privacy as a growing concern.
Where visas are required, more than two-thirds of travelers want to obtain visas online. Only 14% want to do so at the airport.
Travelers would convenient online processes
Passengers want a convenient, digital online process for visas. 87% of travelers surveyed say they would share their immigration information to speed up the airport arrival process, representing an increase from the 83% reported in 2022.
It’s not just visas, however. There’s a growing frustration over long lines. When asked what needs to be improved about security screening and border control at arrival airports, 39% pointed to queueing time as a significant issue.
At the same time, travelers are increasingly comfortable with biometrics to help ease congestion and speed up processes.
“Passengers have made it clear: they want to spend less time booking and move through the airport faster. And they are increasingly willing to use biometric data to complete more pre-departure tasks off airport to achieve this.” — IATA
Nearly half of passengers reported using some form ofbiometrics in the past year as identification in the airport — an increase of 12 percentage points since 2022. Use of biometrics is highest in the Middle East (54%) and North America (52%).
The use of biometrics most frequently happens at security and exit immigration (37%) and entry immigration (34%).
Our surveys show that 85% of passengers are satisfied with the biometric identification process and 75% of passengers claim to be definitely or somewhat likely to share biometric information for contactless travel instead of a passport/boarding pass.
While passengers still have concerns about the storage, processing, and sharing of data, the majority of travelers appear willing to accept biometrics in exchange for a more seamless process.
Moving Toward Digitization of Admissibility and Contactless Travel
There is widespread acknowledgment of the problem. However, there is also a general lack of understanding of what is available now and how the travel experience can be upgraded in the future. Moving toward contactless travel can — and should — already be underway. While there may not yet be a 100% solution, there are resources available to move forward with digitization of admissibility and contactless travel now.
“Our vision for future travel is fully digital and secured with biometric identification,” said Nick Careen, IATA’s Senior Vice President for Operations, Safety and Security. “While the technology exists to do this at each stage of a journey, linking these steps together has proven challenging.”
An end-to-end, consistent system will require cooperation and collaboration among nations.
Digital identity Creation
Digital identity creation is the first building block.
A digital travel credential that holds all of your passport, visa, immigration status, and boarding information, coupled with biometric scanning at the airport will dramatically reduce congestion. Such information would be encrypted for security but shared across airlines, security, and border control.
Pre-admissibility
The information would be pre-populated and validated to accelerate speed at checkpoints in conjunction with biometrics to verify identity.
Sharing
Security controls would be put in place limiting how, when, and where information can be shared.
Such a system could transform the process for travelers, helping reduce some of their biggest frustrations, while also helping ensure a safer, more controlled border and immigration system.
We envision a system that would transition from the current methods to a fully digital and secure solution in the near future.
| Currently | Future | |
| Digital ID Creation | Digital ID is not used in the current process. Where there is a biometric process in place, a biometric token is created through enrolment, but such a token is location-based, and future re-use is not possible in most cases. The token is a ‘snapshot’ of the document, therefore not a verified credential of the passenger. Document scanning and digital onboarding solutions are the starting points to capture travel and identification document info/data which will minimize errors in the required data to be collected. | Passengers create and store verifiable credentials needed for travel, such as passports and visas in a personal digital wallet. Government-issued digital identity (available for travel) will be the most trusted and secure option for the industry where it is compatible with industry standards. If that is not available, the industry can create and issue digital identity for industry use cases, such as contactless travel or digitalization of admissibility. These identities can be created using other authority-issued identity documents than ePassport, such as non-ePassports, identity cards, and driver’s licenses for use cases where the level of identity assurance required is lower, for example, domestic travel and for industry-only use cases. With this, passengers can complete more processes remotely, off-airport, and they can go through touchpoints at the airport with biometrics recognition only without having to show their documents. |
| Pre-travel Admissibility | Currently, manual checks are done at the airport by airline agents preventing off-airport check-in for cases where visas are required. While not in consistent use, there are tools available to provide information to travelers as early as possible via digital travel portals at the point of purchase or check-in. Travel document compliance checks can also be integrated to enable boarding checks earlier and off-airport. | Digital travel credentials (DTC) are travel credentials in a digital format meant to temporarily or permanently substitute a conventional passport. The DTC provides borders with the ability to receive the complete and intact passport data in advance, directly from passengers, in a way that can be authenticated as securely as if the passenger was at the border gate, enabling robust pre-travel risk assessment. Using the One ID standards, the aviation industry can leverage the security and trust that the DTC and/or eMRTD provides. Passenger privacy is protected by only allowing access to the minimum data in a trusted and verifiable format, enabling simple and contactless experiences for passengers. |
| Data Sharing | In today’s process, passengers do not have any control over how their data is shared and typically have to show the same information several times. There is no visibility on where and what is sent. | One ID enables significant improvements to operational efficiency and security. One ID standard enables airline systems to achieve interoperability in offering consistent, seamless experiences to their customers while maintaining data privacy. Passengers would be asked to share content within a trust framework, having control over who can see data, what can be shared, and how data can be processed and stored to align with data privacy laws. |
Solutions and Initiatives
IATA has envisioned a contactless travel future and provided the required framework and solutions to move passenger identification and immigration verification checks off-airport and incorporate them into a pre-travel experience.
On-site, these solutions enable the processing of passengers at airport touchpoints using biometric-enabled, contactless travel solutions. By obtaining all necessary authorizations and demonstrating admissibility to travel before departure, passengers will be “Ready to Fly” before they arrive at the airport.
This may seem like a far cry from where we are today, but we have already successfully tested the first fully integrated digital identity travel experience. From shopping for flights to arrival on a trip from London Heathrow (LHO) to Rome (FCO) with British Airways.
“With our partners, we showed that it is possible,” said Careen. “This will open up a world of possibilities for simpler journeys in the future.”
Solutions available through IATA include:
- Digital Identity: Electronically captures and stores attributes and credentials for biographic and biometric identification of passengers with a high degree of security and privacy.
- Timatic Solutions: An integrated solution that does compliance checks against itineraries and travel documents. The Timatic widget allows airlines without large IT staffs to add this functionality to their sites.
- Contactless Travel: Enables selective data sharing where it needs to be sent for seamless travel, allowing passengers to provide consent.
- PAX Insights: Captures, tracks, and benchmarks each step of your passengers’ journey to enhance customer experience and gain a competitive edge.
- Consulting: Se5rving the airline industry for more than 70 years, IATA delivers practical experience, proven solutions, and state-of-the-art standards
- Training: Training, education, and support resources for airlines, airports, and other stakeholders
Moving toward a contactless travel future can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to happen all at once. There are steps you can take and solutions available right now to get you started. You can depend on IATA to help guide you through the process.
If you would like to learn more, contact the team at IATA today.