East Midlands Airport (EMA) in Leicestershire is the first in the United Kingdom to introduce facial recognition technology, a new contactless system that will allow passengers to pass through electronic passport gates (eGates) without needing to present their passport.
Nationwide rollout
The UK’s Home Office plans to extend the technology to all 13 UK airports with eGates by early 2027. These include Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Glasgow, Heathrow, London City, London Stansted, Luton, Manchester and Newcastle. The contactless system is already in use in countries such as Dubai and Australia.
The Home Office reminded passengers that they will still be required to carry their passports at all times in case of additional checks and Border Force Officers will continue to monitor the eGates.
The government estimates that the new contactless system is up to 25% faster than the current process of physically scanning a passport. A further change aimed to speed up the process was introduced in July, when eGate rules were updated to allow children aged eight and above to use them. The UK’s Border Force maintains that this “state-of-the-art technology” will make journeys “smoother and faster, all while fully maintaining the UK’s robust border security.”
East Midlands airport
EMA’s Managing Director, Steve Griffiths said:
“We’re delighted to be the first UK airport to have contactless eGates introduced by Border Force. This complements changes that we have carried out to our immigration hall recently to help improve the flow of arriving passengers through the area.”
In February, EMA announced the refurbishment of its arrivals hall as part of a 120 million pound customer experience investment programme.
EMA was named ‘Airport of the Year’ at the National Transport Awards, supported by the Department of Transport, on Oct. 1. Its winning submission highlighted a successful year handling 4 million passengers, with 97% of customers rating the airport ‘good to excellent.’
The airport also received the highest accessibility ranking for the sixth year running from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Its express air cargo operation remained the “busiest in the UK.”
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