Airport Juliana: E-Gates Now Operational
The Princess Juliana International Airport (SXM Airport), in conjunction with the Police Force of Sint Maarten (KPSM) has successfully implemented an Automated Border Control (ABC) clearance e-Gates solution at the emigration zone of the airport. In fulfillment of the organizations’ Public Private Partnership, the introduction of e-Gates is just one of many initiatives to be implemented and geared towards improving the traveler experience and enhancing passenger processing and security at the SXM Airport. “Our main goal is to introduce an integrated Passenger Experience program that seamlessly streamlines the identification, verification, validation, and enrollment processes in such a way that it positively enhances passenger flow, while maintaining the highest level of security for travelers,” said KPSM Chief Commissioner of Police, Carl John.
This joint initiative by the KPSM and SXM Airport marks a strong commitment to the modernization of emigration border control processes at the airport through the use of innovation and technology. The latest generation E-gates which are integrated with the common-use infrastructure of the airport, offers a very fast exit emigration control procedure only taking a few seconds to complete each transaction. With assistance from the SXM Airport’s newly appointed Ambassadors, who guide and assist eligible travelers in the use of the solution, the system can then validate the authenticity of the electronic travel documents and allow those travelers to enter the E-gate to perform biometric matching and enrollment. At every step of emigration clearance, this process is being monitored by an immigration officer who oversees all E-gates traveler encounters from an inspector’s booth. The E-gates are designed to address the need for greater efficiency and growing demands for high traveler throughput, while the solution further empowers immigration officers in being able to process upwards of six [6] travelers in the same timeframe it would customarily take one passenger be cleared thru exit control. Upon successful completion of a transaction, travelers may then proceed to airport security screening and continue on their journey.
This is only the beginning of SXM Airport and KPSM’s collective vision in realizing a self-service revolution to modernize the passenger experience across the entire airport, covering both arrivals and future plans at the FBO. “The aim is to professionalize the immigration clearance process at our borders to a global standard, whereby solutions such as Advanced Passenger Information Systems, Passenger Name Record Systems, and biometric verification can be utilized to equip our service in combatting cross border crimes and potential threats to our national security,” explained Commissioner of Police, Denise Jacobs, current Head of Immigration Enforcement and Border Control. As reported to the press in November 20, 2016, KPSM is working closely with Kingdom partners in shaping its ability to perform Advanced Passenger Analysis, which once in place will be a useful tool in filtering high risk travelers from those that are considered low risk. Together these solutions will work in symphony with ABC systems to alert and improve response times for officers in their decision making.
With the Security Checkpoint (BCBP) e-Gates already in use at SXM Airport, eligibility control from landside to airside has been tremendously expedited. These latest generations of Automated Border Control e-Gates will continue enhance the next step of the passengers’ journey by not only allowing electronic travel documents to be validated upon encounter, but also allowing all machine readable travel documents to be accepted by the solution. In the future, whether a traveler is arriving or departing the island he or she will be able to take advantage of SXM Airport and KPSM’s self-service ABC Systems.
