Screenshot from video By Amna Pervaiz Rao | The Peninsula
Visitors at Hamad International Airport’s (HIA) exhibition booth at the fourth Qatar Information and Communication Technology Conference and Exhibition (QITCOM 2017) had an opportunity to experience ‘Smart Airport concept’ first-hand through a simulated journey.
A “digital transformation programme” is underway at HIA to ensure it continues to set benchmarks in customer experience, while continuously improving efficiency, safety and security.
The Peninsula’s visit at HIA’s exhibition stand unveiled the smart HIA programme, Jeremy Ramos, Innovation Lead at HIA said: “At the beginning of the journey, each visitor is given a smart passport in which E-ticket number is mentioned along passenger’s last name. As the passenger proceeds the information is typed in an automatic ‘Check In Machine’, this machine validates personal data of passenger by his last name, which includes passport and fight details. After this procedure one gets a print of boarding pass immediately. By entering number of luggage bags, the bag-tags is provided by the ‘Check-In’ machine.
“Moving forward, the bag check machine loads baggage towards cargo on its own, for doing this the passenger has to scan boarding pass in the machine. Once the weight is cleared passenger moves to MOI E-Gate section. The E-Gate facility is currently live at HIA, people holding RP (residency permit) scan their RP,” he added.
The journey also showcases HIA’s unique brand new features of mobile application. This application provides live flight notifications, turn-by-turn navigation and information of ongoing retail offers on mobile and on smart watch as well.
“HIA is proud to announce that it will launch these features in few weeks. This new feature is named “AR” Augmented Reality, which will be in place at right bottom of HIA application. It will give an opportunity to passengers to experience augmented reality of familiar locations. The new feature will detect and pop up the information on the screen. In few weeks we will launch, that we have integrated Apple watch,” Ramos told The Peninsula.
