China Eastern, Huawei launch 5G smart travel system at new airport

5G enabled services, such as facial recognition for check-in and security, personalized airport experience through the airline’s smart app and paperless luggage services, are part of the first wave of new 5G enabled smart air travel services aimed at improving passenger experience at airports.

The 5G coverage across the airport terminals is achieved with Huawei’s digital indoor system 5G LampSite, which was deployed for China Unicom Beijing in August, 2019. The speeds achieved in field tests exceeded 1.2 Gbit/s.

Thanks to the smart travel service system, passengers can complete all travel transactions from ticket purchase to check-in, luggage consignment, security check, and boarding just by having their faces scanned.

With ultra-secure storage of passenger data, and the deletion of it upon confirmation of boarding the plane, China Eastern Airlines prioritizes the safety and security of their customer’s data, giving them the confidence to fully engage with the new smart services.

China Unicom Beijing’s powerful 5G networks deployed by Huawei enables massive amounts of data transmission, which in turn unlocks personalized services for airline customers. The China Eastern Airlines app will be able to push personalized service information to passengers throughout the entire travel process, including reminders of ticket issuing, check-in, boarding, changes to boarding gates, baggage claims, and transfers.

In addition to regular reminders, luggage loading, luggage arrivals at the claims areas, and unaccompanied boarding and pickup for children, and time estimation to arrive at the boarding gate are available on the app.

China Eastern Airlines has launched its 5G luggage tracking services on top of its permanent luggage RFID tagging solution. With durable and reusable passive RFID luggage cards, passengers that need check-in luggage can put the luggage cards close to their mobile phones to quickly log in their flight numbers and luggage destinations and then perform an activation to complete luggage delivery without needing paper receipts.

Passengers can track the status of their checked-in baggage on the China Eastern Airlines app at any time, and working staff can perform quick luggage checks in real time, thus improving handling efficiency.

Following the pilot operation at Beijing Daxing International Airport, China Eastern Airlines will expand the smart travel service system to airports in Beijing, Shanghai, and other major cities in China.