South America’s busiest airport, Sao Paulo Guarulhos International (GRU), sees the arrival of the first common use self-service (CUSS) kiosks in Brazil heralding efficient and fast check-in for its 21 million passengers. Provided by SITA, the kiosks allow passengers to check in for flights on Air Canada, Air France, KLM or LAN from any kiosk.

The GRU Cute Club, which is an organisation of 32 airlines operating at the airport, has already put six of the SITA CUSS kiosks in place and over the next few months the airport will install a total of 20, facilitating check-in and reducing queues at check-in desks. It is expected that many more of the 32 CUTE CLUB airlines will soon be using the kiosks.

Paulo Dohnert, GRU Cute Club Chairman, said: “By introducing SITA’s CUSS kiosks we are providing faster check-in for our passengers. The common use kiosks can be used by any of the airlines to offer check-in to their passengers. Kiosks are popular both with the passengers and the airlines because they offer faster check-in at a reduced cost.

“In addition, by sharing the kiosks, less infrastructure is needed at the airport which in turn reduces congestion while saving costs.”

Olivier Layly, SITA Regional Vice President, Latin America and Caribbean, said: “The airlines operating at Sao Paulo Guarulhos are responding to passengers’ wishes with these new kiosks by providing more self-service options.  This appetite for self-service was reported in the results of the 2008 SITA/Air Transport World Passenger Self-Service Survey, conducted at six leading airports including Sao Paulo. In 2008, 78% of passengers had a positive attitude towards using kiosks and preliminary figures for the 2009 survey show the airport’s passengers are even more positive towards it now.

“The arrival of these SITA CUSS kiosks is a first for Brazil and demonstrates the leadership and innovation of the airlines and airport operator at Sao Paulo and the commitment to providing an improved passenger experience.”

The second phase of project will include the new SITA S3 kiosk which has the smallest carbon footprint in the industry. Two S3 kiosks fit in the space of one conventional model and they can print bag tags for self-tagging to speed up the bag-drop process. They are also fitted with passport and document scanners allowing the fast collection of advanced passenger information and Electronic Travel Authorization Service data for visa validation.