Starting today, people can enjoy faster service at Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) with its smart e-pass system, allowing them to have their passport authenticated, pass through immigration and board their flight electronically, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said yesterday.
Songshan airport is the first in the nation to conduct a six-month trial of the “3e Smart Service” — e-Check (passport authentication), e-Gate (immigration) and e-Board (gate access) — as part of the government’s efforts to promote “touchless service.”
Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) inspected the airport’s 3e Smart Service yesterday morning.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
E-Gate was built by the National Immigration Agency, while the airport installed smart devices before the entrance to the security check area and at the boarding gates to enable passengers to independently complete the steps on their own, Taipei International Airport service director Hsu Nei-shin (徐乃新) told reporters.
Temperature readers have been placed outside the e-Check area, and travelers are not allowed through if their temperature exceeds 37.5°C, he said.
Before entering the security check area, travelers’ passports and boarding passes are scanned and authenticated by two e-Check devices, he said, adding that the devices are equipped with facial recognition technology.
The devices control automatic doors that do not open if a traveler has an expired passport or there are other irregularities, he said, adding that members of airline ground crews are there to assist people.
The service is offered in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean, Hsu said.
People’s travel information is automatically forwarded from the e-Check and e-Gate devices to the e-Board devices, he said.
To board, travelers stand before a camera on the e-Board devices and have their boarding pass scanned again, he said.
The facial recognition data from each traveler are deleted from all devices one hour after their departure, he added.
CAA said that it spent NT$990,000 building the 3e Smart Service.
Using the smart system for authentication and boarding would lighten the workload of personnel, improve system accuracy and strengthens aviation security, it added.
In related news, Lin said that “travel bubble” tours are more likely to succeed if they are short-haul flights, or flights shorter than five hours.
As tours to Palau are to begin on Thursday next week, Lin was asked whether the nation could make similar agreements with other countries.
Singapore and Thailand are pursuing similar deals with Taiwan, Lin said.
Starting on Thursday next week, travelers entering Thailand would be quarantined for 10 days, not the current 14 days.
Asked whether the government was in talks with Thai officials, Lin said that Bangkok is aggressive in promoting tourism, because it is its main source of income.
Whether other “travel bubbles” work out depends on the COVID-19 pandemic situations in other countries and on negotiations by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lin said.
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