ARINC - Self-Service Passenger Check-in Systems

ARINC is a recognised innovator in passenger technologies for air travel. Its solutions are developed to increase airport and airline efficiency and meet the specific demands of smaller airports and airlines, as well as the major hubs.

ARINC has increased its focus on smaller operators offering hosted services and mobile solutions, which are scalable and flexible and reduce upfront investment.

In April 2008 ARINC announced its new vMUSE™ passenger check-in platform, which reduces costs to customers and will enable more airport terminals of all sizes worldwide to adopt common-use platform operations.

Passenger check-in platform

vMUSE offers significant enhancements over ARINC's successful iMUSE common use platform and lowers costs by eliminating the need for costly bespoke printers and special paper stock for boarding passes. Inexpensive plain paper can be used to produce accurate bar-coded boarding passes and customers will realise significant cost benefits from using standard Windows® printers.

vMUSE is based on ARINC's powerful multi-user system environment (MUSE®) technology. vMUSE can run an airline's own applications alongside today's common use terminal equipment (CUTE) applications and tomorrow's common use passenger processing systems (CUPPS) technology, all on the same workstation.

CUPPS will be mandatory within the next three to four years, replacing CUTE, and ARINC is currently planning CUPPS site trials. The results of these will contribute towards the finalisation of the CUPPS standard.

Specifically to meet the demands of small and large airports, vMUSE is offered at three levels – standard, advanced and enterprise. Smaller airports can upgrade easily from standard, which provides the facility to use standard printers and stationary, to advanced, providing a platform for operating CUPPS.

Mobile passenger check-in systems

To increase the efficiency and flexibility in passenger processing ARINC has developed innovative mobile systems to enable check-in to be brought to the passenger.

vMUSE Express is a fully functional MUSE system that doesn't require a core server infrastructure normally associated with such installations. It can be supplied as a stand-alone system comprising only a laptop and two small printers. It can be taken by the agent to a hotel to process passengers or to set up in a small airport on a temporary or permanent basis.

Many hotels in Orlando, Florida have been using vMUSE Express to provide their guests with the convenience of checking in at their hotel prior to their flight's departure. It is also suitable for small airports and the system is used to provide service at Linz and Paphos airports. It can also provide a back-up system for business continuity in the event of an irregular operation.

Handheld check-in device

ARINC is currently developing a handheld check-in device, which allows roving agents to check-in passengers and print boarding passes either on the airport floor or at hotels and sea ports where wireless connectivity is available. ARINC is also in the final stages of developing a revolutionary check-in system based on using the passenger's own mobile phone device.

Common bag drop system

Common bag drop is a facility required by airports and airlines to reduce demands on airport floor space and staffing. ARINC has responded with ExpressDrop, which allows passengers to check-in baggage at any desk; this system is currently implemented at Las Vegas.

Hosted services for Europe's smaller airports, airlines and handling agents have been introduced, including departure control systems (DCS), baggage reconciliation systems (BRS) and self-service kiosks.