The General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs Dubai, GDRFA-Dubai is now launching the “Smart Gate” – a quick and easy alternative to the standard manual passport control counters and e-gates across the emirate’s airports.
Last year the airport installed ten smart gates in the departure area. Now the airport has 127 smart gates helping them reduce the average time it takes a conventional transaction from minutes to 10-15 seconds.
Major General Mohammed Ahmed Al Marri, GDRFA-Dubai Director-General said that the new gate enables each passenger to pass through immigration without assistance or travel document or ID within only 10 seconds.
Michael Ibbitson, Executive Vice President, Technology & Infrastructure at Dubai Airports said, “Dubai airport is always looking at opportunities for innovation that makes the journey smoother and more comfortable for our customers. Smart Gates do just that by slashing transaction times to just 10-15 seconds and shortening queues.”
The surprising part is that only 17 per cent of passengers take advantage of the service. If you have a UAE residency card then you don’t have to wait in line just use it and if you have a machine readable passport you just have to register it with immigration authorities. It will save your time and make your journey even more enjoyable.
Smart gates don’t need a dedicated card. It can identify a traveler by either their passport, Emirates ID, e-gate card or a QR barcode generated via the GDRFA smartphone app.
The Smart Gate is a part of Dubai Future Accelerators for serving passengers and it is the first of its kind worldwide.
