Airport Passenger Handling Services

In accordance with Regulation (EC) No. 300/2008, which is anchored in the German Civil Aviation Act, EU airports are obliged to perform boarding pass controls at the transitions from landside to airside, prior to passengers reaching security and passport control points.

At present, this is carried out at virtually all airports by means of manned boarding pass control desks. With the aim of reducing operating and staffing costs in the long term, Wanzl Metallwarenfabrik GmbH has developed an automated boarding pass control system, eGate, which will replace the current manned boarding pass control systems.

In addition to legal and economic factors, smooth, rapid, but also precise and tamper-proof passenger handling is important. The procedure involves passengers placing their boarding pass, either in paper form or an electronic copy displayed on a mobile phone, on a scanner at the eGate entrance, which matches the data and checks that passengers are authorised to enter.

At the next stage, a recognition sensor system ensures that passengers are separated. Those passengers that will be seated next to one another or directly behind one another, passengers with children, and passengers with luggage are detected, and the corresponding results are filtered.

As soon as these checks have been performed, access is granted and passengers then proceed to passport and security control points. In the event that the boarding pass check reveals any discrepancies, or in cases where more than one passenger is detected in the defined access area, both visual and audible signals are activated. On the one hand, these signals prompt passengers to leave the access area and, on the other hand, alert the security team.

eGate which is both attractive and adapted to fit in with the architecture of airports as a whole, is naturally protected against any misuse, such as passengers climbing over it or crawling under it. In addition to the features mentioned, eGate is also connected to the airport’s building management system, which monitors the functioning of all facilities.

The introduction of the automated boarding pass control system eGate sees Wanzl make yet another addition to the range of entry systems which have already been deployed successfully in many national and international airports for years.