MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Facial biometric boarding operational at Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo air shuttle

For the time being, passengers may still choose to board the old way, with documents and tickets

Brazil Tuesday started using the facial biometric passenger boarding system for air shuttle (Ponte Aereo) passengers between Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo and the Santos Dumont terminal in downtown Rio de Janeiro.

For the time being, passengers may choose to board in the traditional way, with their documents and air ticket.

”The implementation of the biometric system at both airports, and in the fifth air shuttle worldwide, was possible after it was tested during the pilot project of the federal program 'Embarque + Seguro' (board safer), under the direction of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Serpro, a technology company of the Federal Government,” the authorities said.

Between October 2020 and January this year, over 6,200 passengers participated in the program's test phase at seven airports nationwide. Almost 200 professionals were involved in evaluating biometric boarding at Congonhas and Santos Dumont, from November 2021 to January this year.

At the airport, facial biometrics are used in two stages: first, for boarding lounge access; then for aircraft access.

Brazil's Ministry of Infrastructure pointed out that with biometrics, the average boarding time was reduced from 7.5 to 5.4 seconds per passenger.

For travelers, the process begins at check-in when the biometric validation is performed by comparison with government databases. After that, passengers access the boarding lounge and the aircraft through biometric checkpoints that further perform the verification and validation through cameras, without the passenger needing to present any document or boarding card.