IBM Gives Shanghai Pudong Airport Some Common Sense

Shanghai Pudong Airport has selected IBM to deliver new self-service check-in kiosks in its new terminal so that passengers from different airlines are able to share a single kiosk for check-in themselves.

Shanghai Airport Chief Engineering Architect Lin Jian Hai said, "Shanghai Pudong airport believes that it is very important to embrace new technology in providing our passengers with improved customer service. We have observed the approach to kiosks taken by leading airports and decided it was now time for us to embrace this technology for better client services. IBM was outstanding from open bid and became our natural partner to work with on this project, especially as they could leverage global resource and offer a local solution."

The two-year contract, worth US$2 million, is the first significant airport Common Use Self-Service project to be delivered in China with a locally designed and built kiosk solution, IBM reported. The CUSS standard was developed by the members of the International Air Transport Association to make passenger check-in easy and efficient while allowing multiple airlines to maintain branding and functionality. Northwest Airlines is the first to offer its travelers self-service check-in at the new terminal at Pudong Airport with other airlines at Pudong to follow.

Travelers are served at a free-standing unit containing an IBM Anyplace kiosk, card reader, boarding pass printer, and passport reader. The kiosk uses IBM CUSS middleware developed by IBM Canada and implemented by IBM China. In total Shanghai has installed a total of 80 of the new IBM kiosks.

The CUSS standard lets the passenger select their specific airline from a common screen of all available airlines on a touch screen. The CUSS program then brings into service that particular airlines self-service application to let the passenger complete the check-in process and obtain the bar coded boarding pass.