(QUEENSTOWN) Queenstown Airport has started 2025 with a major tech upgrade, rolling out Beonic LiDAR across key departure areas to track passenger flow in real time and cut wait times at peak hours. The deployment began in early September 2025 and covers five departure areas, including check-in, security, and Customs.
Airport leaders say the system will help frontline teams move from guesswork to real-time action, easing bottlenecks before they spread through the terminal and disrupt flights.
How the system works
The system is built on AI-powered LiDAR—Light Detection And Ranging—which sends out laser pulses to map movement and space. At Queenstown Airport, the setup:
- Creates a live 3D picture of the terminal
- Feeds privacy-safe data to operations staff
- Provides second-by-second views of queue occupancy, overflow, throughput, and wait times
Dashboards guide staffing and lane management during morning and evening rushes. Because the system tracks patterns without capturing faces or personal details, it remains aligned with New Zealand’s privacy standards while giving operations teams the live detail they need.
“We’re excited to deploy Beonic’s technology, which will provide the intelligence we need to make proactive decisions supporting smoother passenger journeys and helping us uphold the high service standards travellers expect,” — Juliet Breen, Queenstown Airport’s Head of Operations, Compliance & Safety.
The airport is treating the rollout as a core service tool for 2025, particularly during holiday surges when tourism pushes capacity.
Operational benefits and roles
Beonic’s Harald Kolodziej, VP Sales APAC & Head of Airports APAC, described the platform as a force multiplier for airport teams: it helps staff “act decisively, reduce bottlenecks, and maintain a consistently high level of service.”
Analysis by VisaVerge.com indicates that airports adopting AI-powered LiDAR can:
- Better plan lane openings
- Balance staff shifts
- Target assistance where lines are thinning or stretching
This leads to fewer missed flights, less stress at security, and smoother handoffs to border officers and airline agents.
What the Beonic system changes on the ground
Queenstown’s deployment focuses on decisions that affect travellers within minutes, not weeks. The Beonic LiDAR platform supports:
- Real-time queue metrics: Live wait times and throughput across check-in, security, and Customs.
- Congestion alerts: Flags overflow and queue occupancy thresholds so leaders can add lanes or reassign staff.
- Service recovery: Live dashboards redirect passengers during flight delays to avoid knock-on terminal delays.
- Privacy-by-design: Analytics are privacy-compliant and do not collect personally identifiable information.
For travellers, benefits include clearer lines, more accurate wait-time displays, and quicker decisions when checkpoints slow down. Families, older travellers, and those with tight connections should see improved predictability.
Policy backdrop and timeline
The rollout aligns with New Zealand’s wider push to support advanced aviation technologies via the Ministry of Transport, MBIE, and the Civil Aviation Authority.
Key regulatory milestones:
- New Civil Aviation Rule (Part 107) due to take effect on 31 December 2025 — aimed at faster testing and iteration for advanced aviation tools.
- Development of sandbox airspace — restricted zones for controlled testing of experimental aviation tech.
- A shift toward intelligence-led, risk-based regulation by the CAA, focusing on safety, data protection, and metric-driven oversight.
The CAA has been working with Beonic and airports to smooth adoption, positioning Queenstown as a flagship deployment under the national advanced aviation strategy. For authoritative details about aviation oversight, visit the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand.
Public consultations related to the broader New Zealand Space and Advanced Aviation Strategy 2024–2030 were open until July 27, 2025, with ongoing stakeholder engagement through 2025.
Local operational impacts and expectations
Queenstown Airport officials activated Beonic LiDAR ahead of the summer season for practical and strategic reasons:
- The region’s travel demand rises with events and outdoor tourism, and delays can ripple through airline schedules and ground transport.
- With live wait-time data, operations can plan staffing for known peaks and adapt when weather, late flights, or tour buses change the load profile.
- The airport expects better use of every open lane and faster recovery when rushes occur.
Internationally, Beonic’s system has been installed at hubs including JFK (New York), Wellington, and London Heathrow, where it’s been credited with shorter lines, smoother transfers, and improved passenger satisfaction. The core advantage is speed: data that once arrived hours or days later now appears within seconds, enabling timely action.
Who benefits and how
- Passengers
- Shorter waits at check-in and security
- More accurate queue updates and fewer last-minute line changes
- Better flows for families, seniors, and people with mobility needs
- Airport staff
- Live, quality-controlled metrics for quick operational decisions
- Ability to open extra lanes, move staff, or pace boarding to match capacity
- Potential reduction in overtime spikes and improved staff well-being
- Airlines and border partners
- Fewer late gate arrivals and missed departures
- Steadier handoffs to Customs and airline agents
- Greater confidence for boarding and gate planning
- Wider sector
- A template for other NZ airports on device placement, dashboards, privacy settings, and training
- CAA engagement offering clarity on data use and performance expectations
Beonic LiDAR helps airports identify subtle but critical situations — for example, when a long queue still flows well versus a short queue that stalls. By tracking both occupancy and throughput, teams can spot the exact moment a queue tips from steady to stuck, and apply small interventions (adding one screener, splitting a lane) that have large benefits.
Privacy, labor and longer-term outlook
Privacy remains a core requirement. Queenstown’s deployment is built to be privacy-compliant, reading movement patterns—not faces—and collecting no personally identifiable information. This is important in New Zealand, where strong privacy rules and public trust demand clear limits and careful data handling.
Labor-market alignment:
- Real-time data enables teams to do more with existing staff.
- Supports fair rostering by matching shifts to real peaks, reducing chaotic surges and improving break planning.
- Managers gain better predictability during weather events or holiday waves.
Looking ahead:
- The new Part 107 rule and updates to Part 101 will be fully in force by late 2025, enabling faster rollouts of advanced systems that improve safety and service.
- The government’s sandbox approach will help test future upgrades, such as blending Beonic analytics with dynamic wayfinding or enhanced passenger messaging inside terminals.
- Stakeholders expect more airports to follow Queenstown’s lead as regulatory pieces fall into place.
Everyday impacts and ongoing refinements
Operational benefits translate into everyday travel improvements:
- A family leaving after a ski week may avoid a stressful end to their trip thanks to a steady security line.
- A study-abroad student clearing Customs on a tight schedule may avoid a missed connection.
- Airport crews see a live picture that matches the floor, enabling moment-by-moment decisions.
Queenstown Airport will continue refining thresholds, alerts, and staffing playbooks as more seasonal data arrives. Beonic is working with the airport on training and calibration to reflect local patterns—tour groups, peak arrival times, and weather shifts unique to the region. The goal is a stable rhythm that endures through busiest days and recovers quickly after spikes.
Final takeaway
With strong privacy rules, a safety-first regulator, and a clear timeline for rule changes, New Zealand is well placed to mainstream proven tools like Beonic LiDAR. If Queenstown’s rollout continues to shorten waits and steady journeys, it may serve as the template for airports across the network—from regional gateways to larger hubs.
As the summer season builds, travellers can expect more real-time queue updates from Queenstown Airport, encouragement to arrive earlier for full flights, and continued fine-tuning of check-in, security, and Customs flows. The early aim is simple: faster lines, fewer surprises, and a calmer path from curb to gate—powered by Beonic LiDAR and guided by teams watching the same live picture the system sees.
This Article in a Nutshell
Queenstown Airport began deploying Beonic LiDAR in early September 2025 across five departure areas including check-in, security and Customs. The AI-powered LiDAR system creates a live 3D view of the terminal and supplies privacy-safe, second-by-second metrics—queue occupancy, overflow, throughput and wait times—via dashboards that inform staffing, lane management and service recovery. The rollout aims to reduce bottlenecks, missed connections and passenger stress while improving staff rostering and operational resilience. It aligns with New Zealand’s regulatory reforms, notably Part 107 coming into force on 31 December 2025, and benefits from Civil Aviation Authority engagement and sandbox testing. Privacy-by-design ensures no personally identifiable information is collected. If successful, Queenstown’s deployment will serve as a national template for scaling AI-powered passenger-flow management across other airports.
