China Eastern Airlines, China Unicom Beijing and Huawei have joined up to launch a 5G smart travel service system at Beijing Daxing International Airport.
The 5G smart travel service system enables an improved airport experience for passengers.
5G-enabled services, such as facial recognition for check-in and security, personalised airport experience through the airline’s smart app and paperless luggage services, are part of the first wave of new 5G enabled smart air travel services aimed at improving passenger experience at airports.
These services, delivered through the use of 5G, AI and AR, set the standard for the new generation of smart airports. This makes the airport a new model of utilising 5G Gigabit networks in the civil aviation industry. The collaboration with the mobile telecom industry will empower the airport to take its brand to a new height.
The 5G coverage across the airport terminals is achieved with Huawei’s digital indoor system 5G LampSite, which was deployed for China Unicom Beijing in August, 2019. The speeds achieved in field tests exceeded 1.2 Gbit/s, showing that the network meets the requirements to provide ultimate 5G experience to passengers.
At Beijing Daxing International Airport, passengers of China Eastern Airlines do not need to show up their ID cards or scan QR codes any more. Thanks to the smart travel service system, passengers can complete all travel transactions from ticket purchase to check-in, luggage consignment, security check, and boarding just by having their faces scanned.
Flight attendants can complete passenger confirmation and guide them to their seats by using the facial recognition system.
Facial recognition also lets ground service personnel quickly identify passengers and remind them of boarding information to help catch their flights.
With smart display terminals in the check-in, security check, and VIP areas, passengers can obtain information about their flights, boarding gates, and destination weather by having their faces scanned, removing the need for passengers to scan long lists of flights to find theirs.
Services that notify the boarding start/end time and predict the time needed to take from the current location to the boarding gate are also available to help passengers.
China Unicom Beijing’s 5G network, deployed by Huawei, enables massive amounts of data transmission, which in turn unlocks personalised services for all China Eastern Airline customers.
The China Eastern Airlines app will be able to push personalised service information to passengers throughout the entire travel process, including reminders of ticket issuing, check-in, boarding, changes to boarding gates, baggage claims, and transfers.
In addition to regular reminders, luggage loading, luggage arrivals at the claims areas, and unaccompanied boarding and pickup for children, and time estimation to arrive at the boarding gate are available on the app.
China Eastern Airlines also plans to provide other featured services, such as time estimation from the departure location to the airport and the reminder of entering its service area, to make air travel services more convenient.
China Eastern Airlines has launched its 5G luggage tracking services on top of its permanent luggage RFID tagging solution.
With durable and reusable passive RFID luggage cards, passengers that need check-in luggage can put the luggage cards close to their mobile phones to quickly log in their flight numbers and luggage destinations and then perform an activation to complete luggage delivery without needing paper receipts.
Compared with traditional methods, luggage services with permanent luggage cards are more intelligent and more convenient. Also, passengers can track the status of their checked-in baggage on the China Eastern Airlines app at any time, and working staff can perform quick luggage checks in realtime, thus improving handling efficiency.