NEW APP COULD CUT AIRPORT PAPERWORK

BRISBANE entrepreneur Stephan Clemens has partnered with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) to help airline passengers with their paperwork.

The world-first Digital Departure Card could allow flyers to key in personal details on their mobile ahead of time, rather than completing arrival and departure cards at the airport.

QUT associate professor Alexander Dreiling says arrival and departure cards are a hassle, especially for passengers who can't speak or read English well.

"Students and staff were keen to take on this project and develop a solution to prototype stage," he says.

"This ultimately involved students from the business and science and engineering faculties coming on board at both graduate and undergraduate levels to develop an electronic prototype.

"Filling in data for the arrival or departure cards on the BAC app in advance, rather than filling it in on the cards at the airport, makes the process easy whether someone is a frequent international flyer or a sometime traveller, regardless of age or language."

The Digital Departure Card converts information to a QR code, which passengers could scan at special airport kiosks.

The kiosks would then print a completed arrival or departure card for passengers to sign. Frequent flyers would only have to fill in the information once before reusing the card on all future flights.

Stephan Clemens, an entrepreneurial software developer at Kernhard Limited, created the special kiosks when mainstream suppliers could not.

He says Kernhard is working on a range of products to improve efficiency for airports, airlines, and shipping companies.

"Kernhard received fantastic support from BAC. It provided an environment which gave Kernhard all options to succeed - perfect conditions for a start-up," he says.

"This project has enabled me to take an idea and turn it into a real-world solution.

"As a passionate glider pilot with entrepreneurial spirit, this catapults me right into the aviation industry."

Now in the prototype stage, the Digital Departure Card is undergoing performance measurement and refinement.

Clemens says he hopes the system will eventually be used in airports across Australia and even internationally.