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INDONESIA
LAUNCHES BIOMETRIC VERIFICATION FOR BORDER CONTROL
24 March 2010
- The Directorate General of Immigration at the Department of Law and
Human Rights in Indonesia, locally known as Imigrasi, has launched a
border control system that includes biometrics capture at 27 of the
nation’s air and sea ports. The system, SITA iBorders, should
significantly improve Indonesia’s control of its borders through
additional checking of watch lists, verification of passports, visas and
permits, and integration of visa issue. Most importantly, the capture
of biometrics from travellers, specifically facial images and
fingerprints, will now give the added security that the person at the
border is the one who has been checked against all the databases. The
first airport, Adisucipto International Airport serving Yogyakarta in
Java, has just gone live with the system and the remaining ports are
expected to be up and running by June. When the roll out is complete
more than 300 workstations across 27 air and sea ports will be live and
will process the vast majority of Indonesia’s approximately 20 million
passenger movements across its international borders.
DELHI
AIRPORT’S T3 TO OPEN IN JULY
25 March 2010 (The Economic Times) –
The new Terminal 3 at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport is
set to open in July this year. The new facility will have an annual
passenger capacity of 34 million, with major carriers switching
operations to the new terminal. Construction on the 511,000m² T3 began
in February 2007.
CHENNAI AIRPORT EXPANSION ON SCHEDULE
22
March 2010 (Travel Daily Asia) – The expansion of the Chennai airport
will be completed by January 2011, as per the initial development
schedule, Anil Mathur reports. India’s Civil Aviation Minister, Praful
Patel, told Parliament on 16 March that 21 acres (8.5 hectares) of land
is being acquired from the Defence Ministry for the expansion. Madurai
and Coimbatore airports will also have new terminal buildings, Patel
said.
BAGGAGE
PERFORMANCE IMPROVES IN 2009 - SITA
25 March 2010 – The SITA
2010 Baggage Report released today reports a drop of 23.8% in the number
of air passengers’ bags mishandled last year, resulting in savings of
$460 million for the world’s airlines in a year when their overall
losses reached $9.4 billion.
This is the second consecutive year
that the industry has brought down significantly the number of bags
mishandled worldwide. Last year there were 2.2 billion enplaned
passengers and 25.025 million bags mishandled globally which is down
23.8% (or 7.8 million bags) from 2008, and more than 40% (or 17.4
million bags) down on the 2007 numbers.
SITA, the aviation IT
specialist, operates WorldTracer, the industry-standard, fully-automated
system for tracing mishandled passenger baggage used by more than 440
airlines and ground-handling companies worldwide.
Francesco
Violante, SITA CEO, said: “Effective baggage management plays an
important part in the overall passenger experience and this latest drop
in mishandled baggage rates is welcome news to passengers and airlines
alike.
“Some of the decline can be attributed to fewer
passengers traveling last year but the 2.9% decline in passenger numbers
is still far smaller than the 23.8% decline in mishandled baggage.
Improvements in baggage handling systems and passengers checking in
fewer bags to avoid extra fees have also contributed to the overall
decline.”
When do bags go missing?
- During aircraft
transfers – 52%
- Failed to load – 16%
- Ticketing error/bag
switch/security/other – 13%
- Airport/customs/weather/space-weight
restriction – 6%
- Loading/offloading error – 7%
- Arrival
station mishandling – 3%
- Tagging error – 3%
While the
vast majority of mishandled bags are restored to their owners within 48
hours or less, just 3.4% of all 25.025 million mishandled bags go either
unclaimed or, in rare instances, are actually stolen. Normally, after
up to six months, unclaimed bags are salvaged, donated or destroyed,
depending on government oversight. The single most important thing that
passengers can do to avoid their bag being mishandled is to leave
sufficient time between connecting flights to ensure their bag is
transferred correctly and on-time.
IATA’s Baggage Improvement
Program (BIP) launched in 2008, proposes solutions that aim to cut
baggage mishandling in half by 2012 – generating annual savings to the
industry of $ 1 billion to $ 1.9 billion, depending on the number of
issues each BIP participant decides to address.
SITA’s Baggage
Management services use highly redundant IP-based global links to
direct, track and trace passenger baggage throughout the journey – from
check-in to final destination. This saves time and money for the more
than 100 airports and 400 airlines worldwide which already use the
solution. SITA is also pioneering the use of RFID technology for
tracking and tracing baggage.
SITA surveys consistently show
increasing passenger willingness to use self-service technology for
checking in baggage either at the airport or off-site, leading SITA to
develop check-in kiosks with a greater range of functionality including
bag tag printing. The new WorldTracer kiosk enables passengers to skip
service queues by generating a unique claims ID number which then allows
the passenger to remain informed of the status of their mishandled
baggage, either through a dedicated web site or a call centre.
*The
report was launched at the Passenger Terminal Expo, the world’s largest
industry event focussed on airline and airport passenger services
taking place this week in Brussels. It can be downloaded at
http://www.sita.aero/BR2010
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