ANA, the entity that manages airports in Portugal, is developing a “chatbot” to be able to inform and assist passengers, with the main objective of “better directing them to the right channel”. The information is contained in a statement shared this Monday by the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI), which takes stock of the first month of the IATA 2022 summer contingency plan.
This plan was prepared to deal with the “exponential increase” in the arrival of passengers in the summer period, also anticipating the celebration of major events, including the Ocean Summit, which took place in Lisbon last week. And, according to this information, this Monday, July 4, the plan entered the “maximum allocation of resources for which it was designed.”
Information about this “chatbot”, that is, a technology that would be available through a smartphone application, it is mentioned in the field of measures that are being implemented, specifically in terms of technology.
According to this statement, it is also in the implementation phase, but in this case at an operational level, the development of signage that allows “simplifying the different channels dedicated to the flow of passengers.”
The statement indicates that, within the framework of the measures already implemented,This includes the reinforcement of human resources, with 55 SEF inspectors reassigned to the airports: 25 in Lisbon, 15 in Faro and another 15 in Porto airport. The resources of the PSP were also reinforced with a border control course given by the SEF, with 176 more agents.
Within the scope of the technological solutions already implemented, there is the “updating and constant monitoring of the available technological equipment” or “SEF Mobile and advance control of passengers are being used in random controls on certain flights or in large events”. The MAI statement indicates that these two technological aspects have already been used “in a significant way” in the control of passengers participating in the Ocean Summit, with 120 controlled entourages and some 7,000 passengers (at the AT1 Figo Maduro Air Base).”
In operational solutions, Rapid4all (the passenger control technological gates – E-Gates) was extended to the United States of America and Canada on June 15. “This solution allowed the processing of more than 19 thousand passengers of these nationalities upon arrival in Lisbon, within a period of 15 days”, indicates the MAI. The gates with first generation E-gates (RAPID) technology “are fully operational and are already processing around a third of the passengers entering Lisbon airport”.
Another measure was the reinforcement of passenger awareness and routing campaigns, with an increase in ANA’s blue points (support staff), improvement in queue management and improvement of signage.
This note from the ministry chaired by José Luís Carneiro indicates that, through the implementation of measures during the last month, there has been “the absence of notable conditioning factors, after the start of the execution of the Plan, except for specific situations in Lisbon and Lighthouse. ”
“The maximum waiting times observed at airports have decreased substantially. In particular, at the Lisbon airport, which, for example, very rarely reached 60 minutes in the last week, being generally much lower”, adds this note sent to the press.
Source: Observadora
