Passport Control Queues at Dubai Airport
Lenghty Dubai Airport passport control queues could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new high-tech system which is under consideration by the organisation that runs Dubai International Airport.
An official for Dubai Airport has revealed that one of the systems would improve the process of predicting passenger numbers at Dubai Airport, enabling immigration chiefs to ensure enough staff are on duty at peak periods.
Another of the systems which Dubai Airport are planning to introduce will send a boarding pass to the passenger’s mobile phone. Scanners at various points throughout Dubai airport would automatically detect the boarding pass on the handset, removing the necessity for it to be displayed to security staff.
Details of the innovations were revealed by Jill Nealon, senior vice-president of HR and development at Dubai Airports.
“The customer will see reduced queuing times and quicker processing times when they go through Dubai airport, that’s because technology will be doing a lot of the checks, rather than individuals.”
“A bottleneck in a queue is often caused due to all of the counters not being open at Dubai Airport. It is not because people do not care, it is because the duty manager on that day at immigration, for example, does not know that there has been an aircraft delay, a divert or 4 late inbound aircraft, so he does not open all the desks and put all his immigration officers in.”
At present this sort of information is passed on verbally, but Ms Nealon said this arrangement was not sustainable.
“The new technology systems will enable managers at Dubai Airport to look at one computerised set of information that will predict what the flows will be, and they will be able to make sure all the desks are open when they need to be open.”
Other innovations will be introduced at the world’s first concourse designed specifically to handle the Airbus A380 double-decker jet, which is currently being built at Dubai airport. When the concourse opens next year, passengers will notice a new approach to shopping.
“The customer will see a whole different range of luxury retail and food and beverage outlets that we are not able to currently offer because of space constraints,” added Ms Nealon.
“A few years ago people used to come through Dubai Airport specifically because of Dubai Duty Free, that was a big world brand, and obviously that’s got a little tired now as time’s gone on and other airports have come through.
“What we hope to do is refresh that and bring back to life that reason for coming to Dubai Airport. Even if you are going to Australia you will want to transit through Dubai Airport because the offering and the experience will be so much richer.”
Ms Nealon was speaking in Dubai at the HR Leaders Forum, which was held alongside the Careers UAE recruitment fair for nationals.
“We have 50 different nationalities across our organisation and we have 3,500 employees.
“We are proud of the fact that we have 29% Emiratis in our business and we have 40% at supervisory levels and above. We have an active campaign to increase that.”
Careers UAE continues tomorrow at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre.