Linate, in a deserted airport, travel becomes touchless

Linate Airport is undergoing a complete makeover, which began summer 2019 with the closure and resurfacing of the runways and the creation of a new temporary boarding area in preparation for the complete renovation of the terminal.

Work is still in progress but now, November 2020, we are also beginning to see the results of this redesign that will make Milan's airport among the most modern and digital in the world.

Despite this difficult time, work at the airport is progressing, and the new system for checking baggage is fully functional.

In fact, new machinery for 3d scanning of carry-on luggage and facial recognition for boarding procedures has been in operation for a couple of months.

Forget the nightmare of having to take notebooks and tablets out of your backpack, goodbye to liquid separation and all other precautions, now the machine does it all by greatly speeding up the procedures to pass the controls. Milan Linate is the first airport in Italy to be equipped with this new technology and the first in Europe to carry out the entirety of carry-on baggage screening with CT machines.

News also at the gates, at the moment not all of them. As is the case at so many airports around the world, there will no longer be a "human" check, but everything will be digital and contactless. After scanning the ticket, paper or electronic, there will be a scan in the face and then the green light to proceed to boarding.

Face Boarding, inaugurated last February, takes advantage of biometric technology based on the facial recognition system. At security checks and boarding, passengers simply show their face to the machine, without having to show their travel documents.

The service is currently tested only for flights to and from Rome Fiumicino, but will be extended to new routes at a later date. An increasingly seamless travel experience to protect the safety and health of passengers.

Of course, right now there is not a great turnout, however, when it comes back to flying, the novelty will make all passengers very happy.

Also with an anti-Covid perspective, SEA is carrying out a pilot project in collaboration with KME to use saCup products, a line of copper coatings, known for its antiviral and antibacterial properties.

Therefore, all surfaces with the greatest passenger contact: handrails, luggage cart handles, and supports in Cobuses will be coated with copper. The Institute of Virology at the University of Pisa has shown that in 60 minutes the viral load of the Sars Cov-2 virus is neutralized to 100%, and in just 10 minutes it is already knocked down by 90%. Where the airport cannot be made touchless, all necessary solutions are used to counter the risk of contagion.

In this pre-Christmas, pre-pandemic world, Linate would have hosted more than 150 daily flights: currently it does not reach 20. The airport is practically deserted and, except for the first morning flights of Lufthansa and Alitalia, has fewer than two movements per hour during the rest of the day.

There are three international routes: Frankfurt early in the morning with Lufthansa, then two Iberia flights to Madrid and a British Airways flight to London Heathrow. Otherwise it's just (little) Alitalia with territorial continuity flights to the islands and connections to Rome, Naples and the south.

In conclusion, it is certainly not for us to say whether it makes sense to have all three airports in the Milan area operational, we have written about the situation at Malpensa and even Bergamo in light of lowcost routes being cut is traveling at a minimum. Perhaps it would make more sense to have only one active stopover, but in this case politics decides.

What is certain is that departing from this airport, when we return to traveling (almost) as before, will be more comfortable, safer and faster.