Hong Kong airport rolls out 45-second smartphone express bag drop service with Cathay passengers first to benefit
Hong Kong airport is rolling out an all-in-one smartphone express bag drop service which will reduce passengers’ self-help process to only 45 seconds and plans to extend it to 80 per cent of airlines within two years.
The service, effective from Thursday across all Cathay Pacific Airways flights except for those to the United States, is expected to greatly enhance the airport’s efficiency and manpower by reducing the time for handling checked luggage. Cathay subsidiary HK Express started offering the service in November last year under a pilot scheme.
Chris Au Yeung, the airport’s general manager for innovation and data insights, said on Wednesday that the new service provided an all-in-one seamless departure for passengers and would reduce the time for handling checked baggage from two minutes at self-drop-in counters to 45 seconds.
He added that the new service would make Hong Kong International Airport the first in the world to provide passengers with a seamless departure process via smartphones from check-in, checked baggage, security clearance checks to boarding.
“At present, this service will only be provided by Cathay and HK Express. We will gradually extend it to other airlines such as Hong Kong Airlines by the end of this year,” he said.
“Hopefully within the next two years, the service will be extended to about 80 per cent of airlines in Hong Kong.”
Au Yeung said if all of the city’s airlines joined the scheme, the existing 120 self bag drop counters would be converted to smartphone express versions.
“The use of fully self-help service is a rising global trend. With the extensive use of this new service, we hope to help airlines save manpower and raise efficiency by shortening the passengers’ queuing time and baggage handling time,” he said.
Under the fast-track system, passengers will need to register in advance for online check-in via their airline’s app followed by the scanning of their passports or travel documents with the app. For e-passports issued by the Hong Kong government, the issue date must be on or after June 2019 to be eligible.
Upon arriving at the airport’s smartphone express bag drop counters, passengers can drop their luggage on a conveyor belt and scan their face for identity verification.
The system will issue a bag tag for adhering to the passenger’s baggage. The passenger will then need to scan the system’s QR code and tap their passport on their phone before proceeding to scan their bag tag to complete the process.
After confirming the completion of the process on the phone, the bag will be transported away while the passenger’s phone will issue an electronic receipt.
