With or without the human touch, DXB is a global leader

Emirates

As Dubai International Airport (DXB) gears up for one of its busiest periods of the year as the “great return” gets under way, it’s time to think airports. Love them or loathe them, they are a central part of our lives as never before.

We are all flying again after the shock to the international aviation industry from the Covid crisis and a lingering fear that lasted a couple of years longer than you’d have expected.

Nearly 10 billion air trips are forecast to be made in 2024, surpassing the record pre-Covid year of 2019. More people are using airports than at any time in history.     

But what global air travellers have not recovered from are the security and safety measures put in place after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the USA.

I think it’s safe to assume that, nearly 23 years after the 2001 acts of terrorism, a new paradigm has been set in air travel. Things will never go back to the carefree days when you could walk through security with a bottle of water or some lotions in your luggage, and did not have to strip nearly naked to pass through security.

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The upshot is that all of us who travel have to spend a good deal longer in airports. Most airlines recommend you check in at least two hours before your flight departure time. Emirates suggests three hours to be on the safe side, especially at busy times.

Passengers will naturally be grumpy at the thought of having to spend so much time at an airport, especially when it involves mundanities such as queuing for check-in and baggage drop, immigration control, security and boarding.   

So the current buzzword in the international airport business is “contactless” – the process by which you have as few dealings or interactions with human beings as possible as you get your boarding card, check-in and drop luggage, head through immigration and security, and board your plane. In theory, this is supposed to speed things up.

You may object to this trend in principle as another step in the apparently inevitable march of computerised automation. I certainly appreciate a friendly smile and a few words of welcome at a check-in desk – from a real person.

But I guess most passengers will be willing to make do with a little bit less personal interaction if they think they can get through the intrinsically frustrating process of queuing at an airport more quickly.

In addition, I’m sure the airports have done their calculations and realise that somebody standing in a 100-person line is not spending money on anything, while a passenger who has been whisked through will probably make a beeline to duty free and all the other money-spinning facilities of a modern airport.

From kerbside drop-off to plonking down in the business lounge took a mere 22 minutes

Emirates Airline, in particular, has been enthusiastically pushing the “contactless” concept recently. You have your boarding pass on your mobile from the online booking, get the check-in machine to read it and print out a luggage tag, and leave your bag on a conveyor belt that whisks it through to your plane.

“Smart gates” read your face at passport control, and there is a “biometric” option now at DXB that means you don’t have to keep flashing the document at each part of the journey. 

Contactless doesn’t always work. I thought I’d get through the Emirates Terminal 3 business check-in without human contact a couple of days ago on a trip to the US, but was stymied by the need to show my passport and a valid Esta, the security clearance required by US authorities, so that I could have another one of those little shiny stickers on the back of my passport. (What are they and why are they necessary?)

After all the hype about “contactless”, it seemed like a throwback. But the lack of contactless did not particularly hinder my smooth passage through the airport.

From kerbside drop-off to plonking down in the business lounge ready for departure took a mere 22 minutes. Many other airports around the world must look enviously at that statistic.

Certainly Los Angeles International (my destination) can learn a thing or two from the smooth operation at DXB. But that’s a story for another day.

Frank Kane is Editor-at-Large of AGBI and an award-winning business journalist. He acts as a consultant to the Ministry of Energy of Saudi Arabia and is a media adviser to First Abu Dhabi Bank of the UAE