China's largest airport to boost capacity with SITA Self-Service Tech
Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA), which handles more than 95 million passengers a year, has chosen air transport IT specialist, SITA, to provide technology to boost capacity. Asia’s busiest airport is using SITA’s self-service kiosks for passenger check-in services on all Air China domestic flights departing from Terminal 3. The new kiosks are designed to support the wide range of travel documents typically used by passengers on these flights.
BCIA will use up to 70 SITA AirportConnect Kiosks to help Air China process passengers faster, while freeing up airport and airline staff to focus on other aspects of the passenger experience. They feature boarding-pass and bag-tag printers; passport and Chinese ID card readers; and large user-friendly screens. Uniquely, they support a wide range of travel documents including those of Hong Kong/Macau and Taiwan residents travelling to mainland China, as well as ex-pats who reside in China permanently.
Li Lei, Terminal Management Department, Beijing Capital International Airports, said “SITA’s technology plays an integral role in helping us realize our ambitions to implement a truly end-to-end self-service experience for our passengers. The new self-service kiosks with the Chinese card reader functionality is a big bonus for Air China’s passengers. Flexible technologies like this help us transform and improve the passenger experience across the airport.”
With rising passenger numbers, BCIA continuously looks to technology to maximize efficiencies. The development of end-to-end self-service has a particularly important role to play. May Zhou, VP, and General Manager of SITA China, said “We’ve had a strong relationship with both Beijing Capital International Airport and Air China for a long time now. It’s great to see SITA being recognized for its high quality daily operations and maintenance at the airport. These self-service kiosks will drive efficiencies at the airport and together they will process close to 20,000 passengers per day. Saving passengers’ time is a win-win for everyone.”
The self-service kiosks make use of the existing CUTE platform SITA has deployed at BCIA, making the implementation process labor- and time-efficient. Although primarily for use by Air China, the kiosks can also be used by other domestic airlines that use Air China ground handling solutions.
