Kutaisi International Airport's First Biometric eGates Halve Georgia's Border-Crossing Time

Kutaisi International Airport, Georgia's second-busiest, installed seven automated border-control (ABC) eGates in its arrivals hall - the country's first such deployment - to handle growing passenger numbers. Built by Swiss provider SITA for state-owned operator United Airports of Georgia, the system entered testing in October 2025 ahead of full launch, at a stated cost of 1.6 million GEL (roughly $600,000).
The gates verify an adult Georgian citizen's passport and match it against a live facial scan connected to national databases, without staff intervention. United Airports of Georgia, SITA's own customer-story page and Georgian trade press all report the same figure: processing time per passenger fell from about 40 seconds under manual inspection to roughly 18 seconds at the eGate, cutting clearance time by more than half. Kutaisi's departures hall had already been running a separate, French-built (RESA Electronique) automated boarding-pass gate system for several months before the arrivals eGates went live.
All available reporting on the deployment originates from the airport operator, its vendor, or press coverage built on their releases; no independent audit of error rates, false-match incidents or passenger complaints has been published, and the eGates are limited to adult Georgian citizens rather than all arriving travellers.

Read the full analysis: https://www.sita.aero/resources/customer-stories/kutaisi-international-airport-cuts-border-processing-time-in-half-to-keep-up-with-the-pace-of-growing-passenger-numbers/