Air France-KLM to start trial of biometric boarding at JFK and IAH airports. Credit: Doug Letterman.

Franco-Dutch airline holding company Air France-KLM will start testing biometric boarding using facial recognition technology at two airports in the US.

The company has joined hands with the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to start the pilot of a biometric boarding process at John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York City and George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) in Houston.

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In the trial period, more than 2,000 passengers will use biometric identity daily to board Air France flights.

Air France-KLM said that during the trials it will evaluate the speed, consistency, and user-friendliness of the biometric boarding technology.

Air France KLM USA vice-president and general manager Stephane Ormand said: “We are excited to embrace an innovation that has the potential to make the travel experience less stressful and more secure for our passengers.

“Our aim is to implement biometric boarding at 93% of all US airports by the year’s end, and 100% by 2020.”

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Initially, Air France and KLM passengers flying from Dallas Fort-Worth, Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Dulles, San Francisco, and Seattle can avail biometric boarding facilities.

Apart from Air France-KLM, a number of airlines including JetBlue, British Airways, Qantas, and Delta are also testing biometric boarding technology.

Finnair began offering biometric boarding with Vision-Box technology at Los Angeles International Airport in May.

In the same month, Boston Logan International Airport in New England, US deployed CLEAR biometric technology to speed up security checks.

In August last year, Heathrow Airport announced plans to roll out biometric services on a full scale from mid-2019, giving the airport the largest biometric deployment in the world.