Air travellers can’t see all of it, but more tech is moving them along

Airports, often hemmed in by neighbourhoods, highways or water, already struggle to keep up with the rising number of air travellers. And the number is expected to keep going up — to more than 7b globally by 2035, IATA says, nearly doubling from 2016. So while airports are expanding their physical facilities where they can, govts and the travel industry are leaning more heavily on technology, especially artificial intelligence, to process more air travellers more quickly. The airports in Osaka, Japan, and Abu Dhabi have tested autonomous check-in kiosks that move themselves to help manage peaks of passenger flow. Seattle-Tacoma International and Miami International are among those using visual sensors to monitor passenger line lengths and how quickly people are moving through security checkpoints. <br/>