Innovating Airport Passenger Terminals: Determining the feasibility of new terminal concepts based on seamless flow technology

The continuing growth in air travel passengers, in combination with enhanced security regulations, has led to unsustainable situations at airports. In order to handle the future amount of air travel passengers while complying to security regulations and enhancing the passenger experience, the terminal system must be innovated. Seamless flow is a future end-to-end continuous, efficient and secure innovation which uses passenger biometrics for identification throughout the airport processes. Previous research is focused on fitting the new seamless flow technology in with the conventional airport processes. This research explores whether the biometric technology could lead to new, and feasible, passenger terminal concepts. Two new seamless flow concepts are constructed and assessed on their feasibility by conducting interviews with stakeholders, performing desk-research and executing a financial Cost-Benefit Analysis. The research findings indicate that the new technology could lead to feasible, efficient and experience enhancing passenger terminal concepts in comparison to the conventional terminal concept equipped with seamless flow technology. Thereby, the support of - and collaboration between - stakeholders, especially the border guard agency, is shown to be essential for the implementation of seamless flow technology on civil airports. Besides that, it is shown that more efficient terminal concepts could significantly benefit airports through increased commercial opportunities