Star Alliance has expanded its fledgling biometrics service to Hamburg airport.
The alliance launched the technology at Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna airports in late 2020, allowing Lufthansa Group passengers to use facial recognition technology to pass through security and boarding gates.
It has now been extended to Hamburg airport, enabling Austrian, Swiss and Lufthansa customers to now pass through the airport’s central security checkpoint and boarding gates A17 and C16 using biometric recognition.
Passengers must be a member of the Miles and More loyalty programme and register for Star Alliance Biometrics at least 24 hours before their flight to be eligible to use the service.
The alliance said that passengers’ faces are “automatically captured” by cameras installed in the relevant areas, and compared with customers’ stored images. It also notes that travellers can keep their mouth-nose coverings (which currently remain mandatory at the airport) in place during the recognition process.
Star Alliance VP customer experience, Christian Draeger, said that the alliance was “progressively widening our biometrics footprint”, adding that “We hope to see more member airlines and partner airports adopt the technology in the times to come”.
Meanwhile Falk Durm, head of ground and airport experience Lufthansa Group, commented:
“In the Lufthansa Group, biometric offers will increasingly provide for simplified and more efficient contactless processes at the airports and thus significantly improve the travel experience of our passengers.
“I am pleased that we can now also offer our guests Star Alliance Biometrics in Hamburg after the successful start in Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna.”
