Lufthansa is rolling out a new service at Berlin Brandenburg Airport that will allow travellers to use facial recognition to access a priority lane for security checks.

The ‘BER Traveller’ service, which will replace the need to show a boarding pass, is offered across all Lufthansa Group airlines – Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings – and is currently available to loyalty members with HON Circle and Senator status.

Travellers using the service will have priority access to security control via a separate lane using facial recognition. The only requirement is a one-time registration of their biometric data in the FastID app, according to the carrier. Passengers will receive an invitation via email from the airline.

The move follows the recent expansion of touchless biometric technology for check-in, security and boarding at Frankfurt airport after Lufthansa and Swiss conducted trials in both Frankfurt and Munich.

The carrier said the “next step” will be to implement facial recognition technology to board flights at the gate and also to access the Lufthansa Group Lounge in Berlin.

Lufthansa Group head of customer experience Heike Birlenbach said the contactless, biometric services will “make airport processes simpler and more efficient”. 

Thomas Hoff Anderson, chief operations officer at Berlin Brandenburg Airport, said the new service provides “a good basis for being able to offer the new BER Traveller product to other airlines’ passengers as well”. 

The biometric service is voluntary. Personal and biometric data is stored decentrally in the passenger’s app. Passengers who have registered in the FaceID app must confirm before each journey whether they want to use the service for the next flight, according to the carrier.