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CAPA Centre for Aviation has named Vancouver Airport Authority’s BorderXpress self-service border solution the 2015 Airport Innovation of the Year.
Announced at the CAPA World Aviation Summit in Helsinki, Finland Oct. 7, this prestigious award recognizes the impact of YVR’s industry-leading border clearance solution on the travel experience at airports around the world.
CAPA Centre for Aviation is the leading provider of independent aviation market intelligence, analysis and data services. Its annual Aviation Awards of Excellence reward airlines and airports that demonstrate strategic industry leadership amidst changing industry conditions.
Candidates for the awards are shortlisted by the CAPA team of analysts and aviation partners, and then reviewed by an esteemed panel of judges. A new category for 2015, the airport innovation award is given to the airport or IT supplier responsible for the most powerful information technology innovation in the airport sector.
“Vancouver Airport Authority has been a pioneer with its development of BorderXpress Automated Passport Control Kiosks, which have reduced border waiting times by over 50 per cent,” said Peter Harbison, CAPA executive chairman.
“The judging panel selected Vancouver Airport Authority for being extremely innovative and taking the strategic initiative to develop a product that has significantly impacted the airport sector.”
YVR’s BorderXpress kiosks automate the administrative portion of customs declaration, helping accelerate the process by up to 89 per cent, with no pre-registration or cost to passengers. With this increased efficiency, travellers arriving at BorderXpress-equipped airports experience shorter wait times, less congestion and faster customs processing times.
“To achieve this prestigious honour from CAPA is both an honour and a tremendous endorsement of YVR’s commitment to innovation, one of our core values,” said Craig Richmond, president and CEO, Vancouver Airport Authority, accepting the award from Harbison.
“Through technologies such as BorderXpress, we are taking an active role in improving the global travel experience, and we look forward to building on YVR’s longstanding foundation of innovation.”
Instead of filling out a declaration card and taking travel documents to a border officer, passengers use the self-service kiosk to enter their information. This data is sent by encrypted transfer to the government agency, which returns a response in seconds. Receipt in hand, travellers then see a border officer for verification.
First introduced at YVR’s own U.S. pre-clearance facility in May 2013, BorderXpress has been embraced by airports, airlines and travellers around the world. To date, more than 700 kiosks have been deployed at 25 airports throughout North America and the Caribbean, collectively helping more than 50 million passengers safely and quickly clear the border.
As airports around the world seek to implement BorderXpress kiosks, the solution’s latest technology offers expanded visa processing, making it available to virtually every international traveller, and facial recognition technology capability. Additionally, the technology can be easily customized to meet the immigration requirements of any government in the world.
