Norwegian airport operator Avinor has rolled out an end-to-end touchless travel programme to tackle the impact of COVID-19 and help restore travel confidence ahead of Norway’s summer season.
Passengers travelling from Avinor’s 44 airports will soon be able to check-in, drop their bags, pass through security, and board the aircraft without interpersonal contact, or the need to touch physical kiosk, thanks to new social distancing processes and technology from Amadeus and ICM, an Amadeus company.
Travellers can now check-in for a flight remotely and receive a boarding pass barcode sent to their mobile phone, which also acts as a coupon to print their bag tag. Upon arrival at the terminal the passenger presents the barcode to a self-serve kiosk and his/her baggage tag is automatically printed.
The passenger can then attach the tag and deposit the bag into the baggage system with no support from agents required. Avinor’s in-house team have re-engineered their self-service bag drop units with a new smart configuration of the existing barcode scanners and passenger dialogue in order to make the process touchless.
Avinor airports already offer touchless boarding, with passengers able to present their boarding pass stored on their phone in order to authenticate and board the aircraft.
The new touchless experience will initially be available at Norway’s four hub airports, beginning with its introduction at Oslo on 6 July, followed by Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim, which together represent more than 66% of all departures. In total, seventeen airports will be upgraded to deliver the nationwide touchless experience. The service will be available initially for passengers flying on the national carriers SAS, Norwegian Air and Widerøe.
Brede Nielsen, Group CIO at Avinor, commented: “Given our unique geography many Norwegians depend on their local airport for both business and leisure travels. Several domestic routes serve more than a million passengers every year. We operate several of Europe’s top 20 busiest routes within Norway.”
He continued: “Our passengers can count on us to take necessary measures according to advice from Norwegian health authorities. This reduces the risk of being exposed to infectious virus to an absolute minimum and we are confident that travellers will welcome our new touchless approach. We’ve worked quickly and flexibly with Amadeus and ICM to build and deploy new technology to make it both safer and easier to fly from our airports. We’re now in a strong position to serve increased numbers of passengers travelling during the summer period.”
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