Self-service at new Tom Bradley West terminal at LAX

Los Angeles Airport has introduced two types of self-service at its at its new Tom Bradley West Terminal:

  • information kiosks
  • biometric boarding gates

The West Gates at Tom Bradley International Terminal is located just west of the international terminal and took four-and-a-half years to build.

Information kiosks

A total of 14 interactive kiosks at the West Gates provide access to a wide variety of airport and flight information, and location of amenities. The kiosks can also provide information about ground transportation options and nearby hotels.

The systems can send personalized wayfinding to passenger devices via QR codes.

Biometric egates

The 14 biometric egates are part of a $1.73 billion investment in the new terminal.

The five-level, 15-gate, 750,000-square-foot facility, will serve international and domestic flights.

How it works

Passengers board by having their facial biometrics checked at the egate by a special camera.

At the boarding egate, the special camera captures the live facial biometric of the passenger.

The system passes the details to the CBP U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Traveler Verification Service (TVS). If the biometric system approves a passenger, the gate opens and the passenger can board the aircraft.

This system allows passengers to board without having to show a boarding pass or a passport.

Supplier

The biometric egates come from French company EASIER. They call their egates SkyLane.

EASIER used to be called IER and for many years was the leading company on boarding pass printers, bag tag printers, boarding pass printers and boarding pass readers.

Privacy

U.S. citizens have the option of opting out of the facial image capture and may be processed by airline agents with a passport and boarding pass.

Airlines, airport and EASIER do not keep any private passenger information and biometric matching is done by CBP in the cloud.

Numbers

EASIER says it has has deployed 52 SkyLanes in the new Bradley West Gates and 24 SkyLanes in the existing gates at Tom Bradley International Terminal.

LAWA says Electronic gates are available at all 14 holdroom locations

We have no idea about the discrepancy and are asking both LAWA and EASIER for clarification on the numbers.

N.B. Image credit: LAWA

Internet links

Los Angeles Airport (LAX)

EASIER