Berlin Brandenburg Airport is introducing ‘BER Traveller’ a new digital service for biometric access control. Effective immediately, Lufthansa Group Airlines’ HON Circle Members and Senators can enjoy the new service.
On Tuesday (May 16, 2023), Lufthansa Group announced the introduction of Berlin Brandenburg Airport’s new ‘BER Traveller’ program, a digital service for biometric access control. Customers of Group airlines, Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings’ HON Circle Members and Senators can now take advantage of the new service. Previously, customers had to show their boarding pass to get to the security control’s priority lane, but now passengers have fast access to priority security control via a separate lane using facial recognition. The only requirement is a one-time registration of their biometric data in the service provider’s app, FastID. Customers will receive an e-mail invitation from their airline.
Commenting on the launch of the new facial recognition service, Lufthansa Group’s Head of Customer Experience, Heike Birlenbach, said,
“We are improving our passengers travel experience in the long-term through contactless, biometric services since they make airport processes simpler and more efficient. I am pleased that we can now also offer this innovative service to our HON Circle Members and Senators in Berlin. Our customers greatly appreciate this new service at all locations where biometric checks have already been introduced.”
Also speaking on the new service, Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH’s Chief Operations Officer, Thomas Hoff Anderson, said,
“We are pleased to have persuaded the Lufthansa Group, one of our most important customers, of the great potential of facial recognition for smarter passenger processes at BER. This is a good basis for being able to offer the new “BER Traveller” product to other airlines’ passengers as well. FastID is the right partner to help us make departures from BER faster and easier thanks to the opportunities offered by digital facial recognition.”
FastID’s Managing Director, Albert van Veen, added,
“The implementation at BER Airport represents a new era of identity control in travel – an era that is fully decentralized and gives individuals control over their own data. With FastID, BER Airport has given passengers the option of taking back responsibility for their journey, offering biometric identification for faster and smoother travel. FastID puts the passenger at the centre of the journey, enabling a fully convenient and safe experience.”
The Lufthansa Group and BER are jointly expanding the range of digital services for passengers with this new project. Initially, the service will be available for Group airlines’ HON Circle Members and Senators. The next step will be making the use of BER’s self-service machines, boarding at the gate and access to the Lufthansa Group Lounge possible with facial recognition. Use of this new biometric option is completely voluntary. Personal and biometric data is stored de-centrally on the passenger’s app. Even after registering, passengers can decide before each flight whether or not they want to use the service. Only then will the data and the photos taken later at the airport be transmitted in encrypted form to FastID for comparison. After the flight, the data is deleted from FastID and remains only in the passenger’s app.
Source: Lufthansa