Dubai International Airport moving passengers faster

Dubai International Airport is gearing up for a capacity of 118 million passengers, from its current 90 million. Jumana El Heloueh / Reuters

Passengers are passing at a faster pace through immigration at the Dubai International Airport thanks to new technologies as the airport gears up to have a capacity of 118 million passengers next year.

The clearance time and subsequent wait times at the airport have dropped by about 10 per cent during the first quarter with the implementation of Emirates ID facility at e-gates and a new passenger tracking system, Dubai Airports said yesterday.

“Around 84 per cent of transfer passengers were processed within five minutes, 68 per cent of arrival passengers were processed within 15 minutes and 87 per cent of departing ­passengers were processed within 10 minutes,” it said in a statement.

The airport, which had a capacity of 90 million in 2016, recorded 83.6 million passengers last year and expects 89 million passengers this year.

Smart gates and the use of Emirates ID cards at the automated immigration gates helped push down the transaction times to an average of 10 to 15 seconds per passenger.

The service was introduced last year and has been used by 1.3 million UAE users, according to the airport. The service is available to all UAE residents holding an Emirates ID at the 120 Smart Gates across the airport.

Another new technology that involves a motion sensor system allows the airport to track queues in real time, helping faster clearance. The system comprises 530 sensors installed at passenger-processing areas in Terminal 1 and Terminal 3 at the airport. Implementation of the system at Terminal 2 is expected this year.

The sensors track data such as passenger wait times and queue lengths. A mobile application conveys the data to about 5,000 operational staff across Dubai Airports, airlines and control authorities working at the airport so that they can identify and clear bottlenecks.

“The automated system provides us with timelier and more accurate data more quickly than the manual system that was used previously,” said Frank McCrorie, Dubai Airports’ senior vice president of operations.

The data also allows the Dubai Airports’ planning teams to track trends.

In 2015, 29 per cent of global passengers were offered fast travel solutions, which included self check-in, immigration clearance and self baggage tagging, according to trade body International Air Transport Association.

The organisation has set a target of 80 per cent of global passengers to be offered self-service from check-in to baggage recovery by 2020.

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