Frequent flyer program customers of Star Alliance member airlines will soon be able to use their biometric identity across any participating airline at any participating airport following a new agreement between the airline alliance, NEC Corporation and SITA. Connecting to SITA's Smart Path solution, the Star Alliance Biometrics platform will be able to use SITA's shared airport infrastructure already available in more than 460 airports. The NEC I:Delight platform, which allows passengers who have opted to use the service to be identified quickly and with a high-degree of accuracy, even when on the move, can be easily integrated with SITA Smart Path. Passengers using Star Alliance's Biometric platform enroll only once. They can then pass through biometrically enabled touchpoints across multiple member airlines and participating airports using just their face as their boarding pass. Click to enlarge. The I:Delight platform is also able to recognize passengers even when wearing a mask, an increasingly important feature for travel during the ongoing COVID19 pandemic. The platform is already in use by Star Alliance member airlines at several airports in Europe.<br/>
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The Lufthansa Group has long wanted to get into the long-haul leisure game. Efforts have ranged from flying high-density Airbus widebodies at Lufthansa Cityline and Eurowings, with neither generating hoped-for returns before both came to an end with the coronavirus pandemic. Enter Eurowings Discover. Discover is the group’s latest operating subsidiary with an eye on the holidaygoers who are flocking back to the skies. Flights begin with three high-density Airbus A330s to five destinations in June and expand to more than 13 destinations — including new service Halifax, Canada, and Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe — by next summer. Discover, like the Airbus A340s at Cityline before it, will directly feed Lufthansa at its Frankfurt and Munich hubs. But, with the group’s repeated emphasis on simplifying its operations through the crisis including the closure of its Germanwings and SunExpress Deutschland operations, analysts are understandably wary of the plan for a new subsidiary. Speaking with analysts on Tuesday, group CEO Carsten Spohr described Discover as an operation closely integrated with Lufthansa to ensure “maximum connectivity” in Frankfurt and Munich. “It’s a lot of innovation for the network in there,” he said. “If it turns out to be as positive as we think, we can indeed grow that business.”<br/>
Thai Airways International on Wednesday said that its acting CEO, Chansin Treenuchagron, had resigned. The airline's chief of human resources, Suvadhana Sibunruang, will take over as acting CEO, the company said. The announcement comes after a court approved the airline's restructuring plan. Chansin will remain as an administrator of the airline's business rehabilitation plan.<br/>