DFNN unit see airports shifting to digital
The technology arm of DFFN Inc. iWave Inc. anticipates a “tidal wave of demand approaching” as airports transition to biometric e-gates.
In a statement, iWave announced that the company was granted the P1.5 B contract through its implementing partner Amadeus I.T. Group SA for the roll out of biometric e-gates in regional hubs in Cebu, Clark, Bohol and Davao.
Recently, the New NAIA Infra Corp. (NNIC) deployed 78 biometric e-gates at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) international gateways in Terminal 1 and 3.
Following the recent improvements in NAIA, DFNN and iWave foresees rising demand for the airports to shift to electric border systems for immigration processing.
The technology firm expects such facility upgrades to increase the value of the airport to compete with global hubs, resulting in passenger volume growth. This is while noting that “reliability matters more than features, thus operational failure carries significant cost.”
“As airports grow busier, the cost of downtime and disruption escalates materially, reinforcing the role of technology operators like iWave that provide real-time diagnostics, rapid incident resolution, on-site response and ongoing system maintenance to sustain mission-critical airport and border operations at scale,” iWave said.
According to passenger rights and flight compensation firm AirHelp’s 2024 report, NAIA ranked 199th out of 239 global airports. The criteria for the ranking are on-time performance at 60 percent, customer opinion at 20 percent and food and other establishments at 20 percent.
