Smart airport to take off in Shenzhen

Writer: Han Ximin  |  Editor: Holly Wang  |  From: Shenzhen Daily 

China's aviation authority unveiled a guideline Tuesday on supporting the Shenzhen International Airport in becoming a demonstration airport in smart airport construction.

At an on-the-spot meeting at the Shenzhen airport jointly organized by the airport and Huawei Technologies, the CAAC Central and Southern Regional Administration displayed smart airport construction achievements and promoted the construction of a safe and highly efficient, environment-friendly, intelligent, convenient and harmonious airport.

Under the title “Embracing Digital Transformation, Speeding up Smart Airport Construction,” the Shenzhen airport introduced its recent progress in improving digital transformation and smart airport construction.

In the guideline, the administration said the Shenzhen airport will be a benchmark for smart airports and a highland for new technology application. By 2030, digitalization will be fully integrated with airport businesses and the airport will be a demonstration airport for smart construction whose intellectualization will have reached a world leading level.

The administration will render support through industrial regulations, research, data sharing, intelligent support and information safety.

The Shenzhen airport and Huawei jointly released a digital transformation report at the forum, introducing their vision, mission, plans and trajectories for digital transformation and smart airport construction, providing the Shenzhen Experience to other airports.

At the forum, the Shenzhen airport has also put its smart systems on display, including allocation of parking aprons for planes, a security operation center and facial recognition checks.

As a part of the Future Airport program, it has initiated intelligent security checks, which are helpful in identifying fake identification documents. Four passages have been equipped with an automatic ID verification system, facial recognition system, luggage conveyor system, x-ray scanning system, body check system, luggage re-examination work station and passenger-luggage matching system.

Passengers can go through the checks by utilizing the facial recognition and ID identification system. The passenger-luggage matching system prevents passengers from mistakenly taking the carry-on luggage of other passengers. The millimeter wave body check device improves the level of safety checks while optimizing the safety check experience for passengers.

Statistics show the efficiency of intelligent passages is 1.5 times higher than traditional security checks. They can handle 220 passengers per hour.

In cooperation with Huawei, around 4 million passengers a year don’t need to take shuttle buses to board planes at the Shenzhen airport, thanks to the application of an intelligent stand allocation system. Based on big data and AI, Huawei helped optimize the utilization of contact stands and increase the direct boarding rate by 7 percent each year, which saved 4 million passengers from using shuttle buses each year.

The Shenzhen airport handles about 50 million passengers a year and the number is expected to reach 55 million by the end of 2020. The airport was chosen by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to showcase the future-ready airport.