Across the country airports have changed in the past year, and Houston two airports have kept up. If you haven’t done much flying in the past nine months, and many haven’t, you can take comfort in knowing that as new procedures have been developed to ensure public safety those processes are being applied at Bush Intercontinental and Hobby.
The experience can begin before you leave home with the updated parking app that allows you to reserve a space when you book your flight. “That way there will be less stress when you have to go park at the airport,” says Houston Airport’s Augusto Bernal. “You already have your reservation, and it allows the touchless airport experience to happen even before you reach our parking facilities.”
Touchless is the buzzword, from touchless kiosks that provide airline ticketing and baggage check to touchless menus and payments at food concessions. Some of the changes you will see, and some you might not, such as biometrics. “We’re doing facial recognition technology at international arrival checkpoints, so that’s going to reduce contacts with CBP personnel once you come in from an international flight,” says Bernal. Same thing with departures. The software compares an image taken in real time with one stored in a file such as passports to confirm each person is who they say they are.Bernal says it speeds up the process and makes for faster moving lines.
TSA screenings dropped by 500 million year over year by the end of 2020, with 18 million traveling over the year-end holidays.
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