Are you heading to Madrid for the Passenger Terminal Expo (PTE), 8-10 April 2025?
If so, come and say ‘hello’ to SITA’s team of experts. We’re at booth 1202 with fresh coffee and fresh ideas. We’ll be talking about big industry trends and innovations for airports that actually work. Our latest solutions will help you cope with rising passenger numbers, speed up processing and make your airport more efficient:
- Biometric breakthroughs:With over 5,000 biometric touchpoints worldwide, SITA is years ahead in biometrics for airports (and we have great case studies to prove it.)
- Baggage tracking: Real-time luggage tracking and predictive tech, plus automated bag-drop systems and auto-reflight to smooth the customer journey
- Passenger experience: Real world insights on flexible and adaptive solutions such as AI-driven kiosks, mobile apps, and personalised services.
If you want to book a meeting with the SITA team, visit the SITA website or contact us via the links on our profile. Outside PTE, we’re also holding a free breakfast seminar. Join us if you can! Click here to book. All air travel industry professionals are welcome.
If you can’t make it to Madrid, it’s still important to get into the global conversation. Here’s a quick run-down of the mega-trends that are impacting airports, large and small, all over the world.
The benefit of hindsight. The power of prescience
SITA believes this is possibly the most challenging era for airports ever. With a 75-year pedigree in supporting the air travel industry through technology, we’ve helped airports deliver great customer experience in difficult time before.
Passenger numbers are growing, probably doubling by 2040. Customers have increasing expectations too. And there’s new urgency around security and sustainability. And let’s not mention global tensions, which can have a huge impact on our industry.
Not surprisingly, airport professionals feel that pressure every day. So, what’s to be done?
At this year’s Passenger Terminal Expo (PTE), SITA is bringing effective solutions to which can reduce stress on airports right now:
- Self-check-in kiosks to speed passenger processing
- Automated baggage solutions including Self Bag Drop
- Auto-Reflight to save money on mislaid luggage
- Biometrics to increase efficiency and security
- AI-driven customer services
What’s different is that, with our unique experience and singular focus on the airport industry, our innovations work in the real world of airport operations.
The power to innovate
SITA has the development prowess and the global resources to help you set a cost-effective glide path for the future. For example, we’re literally years ahead in biometric technology.
That’s why some of the world’s busiest airports and airlines are adopting SITA’s biometric technology as the industry standard. SITA’s biometrics systems are currently in use at many of the world’s leading airports, including major hubs like Beijing (PEK), Bangkok (BKK) and Newark (EWR).
In Aruba, SITA systems enable a complete, end-to-end customer journey, from home to airport that enables touchless travel authorisation from home to airport check-in to immigration to hotel check-in. Put simply, your face is your boarding pass and your passport. Amazing!
But SITA’s scale of innovation is matched by our depth of service:
- 13 billion air passengers a year processed via SITA systems
- 100 million passengers boarded with our CUS annually
- Over 20 million identities managed
- 5,500 kiosks in operation at more than 250 airports worldwide
- Self-bag drop solutions in over 120 airports
- Over 1000 aircraft self-boarding gates
- Border management solutions for over 40 governments
So, if you have a question, from customer experience to airside operations, SITA has the answer.
Sometimes it’s the simple things
Airports and airlines literally move a mountain of baggage every day. Isn’t it strange how customers take it for granted? But it’s also a topic that can be overlooked in the pressure to move people efficiently.
Yet the baggage challenge for our industry is vast and complex, and about to get bigger. The average passenger currently checks 1.2 bags. If passenger numbers hit 10 billion by 2040, that’s 12 billion bags to be processed, handled and delivered.
Around 7% of bags are currently ‘lost’, delayed, misdirected, damaged or stolen. And that number tends to get worse as customer numbers increase. The degree of human intervention to check-in bags or, worse still, to return lost luggage is an operational and financial headache.
That’s why SITA is pioneering automated solutions for baggage such as Self Bag Drop (the gold standard in self-bag drop) and WorldTracer Auto Re-flight (which could save you up to $1.2m in ‘lost luggage’ issues).
Even if you can’t attend PTE in Madrid this year, you can be part of re-energising our industry. Take a look at our white paper on the future of airports, Find Your Flow, by scanning the above QR code and talk to your local SITA team.