News

Travelers fly through airport customs with self-service kiosks

July 31, 2014

Customs waits in Boston may be a little shorter since Logan International Airport has deployed 30 self-service kiosks, according to the Boston Globe. 

The Massachusetts Port Authority paid $2.1 million for the kiosks in an effort to ease congestion at U.S. Customs and Border Protection areas. According to U.S. Customs, 20 of the kiosks installed last month reduced waiting time by 19.4 percent, the article said, dropping the average wait to close to 23 minutes.

"We have to get ahead of what we see coming at us so we don't get this implosion of travelers and processing times," Massport Cheif Executive Thomas Glynn told the Globe. "It's really a customer service imperative, and it seems like it works."

The kiosks transformed the customs process into an automated one, reducing clerical work for declaration submission and biographical information forms. 

"It expedites the process," said Kevin Weeks, Boston U.S. Customs field operations director, in the article. "We feel it enhances our ability to vet or examine the traveler because the officer is no longer busy with key strokes or checking the passenger in."

The touchscreen kiosks are available only to U.S. and Canadian passengers in Terminal E and will scan passports, take photos of individual users and ask for item declarations.