Do Airport Biometrics & Travel Tech Add a New Growth Engine for BBAI?

BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. BBAI is steadily shaping airport biometrics and travel technology into a meaningful growth pillar, complementing its core national security focus. Management has been clear that “smart, secure travel and trade” is a strategic priority, where advanced computer vision, biometrics and AI-driven threat detection can solve real-world operational bottlenecks while enhancing security. This positions BBAI at the intersection of border protection, traveler experience and digital identity modernization.

The company’s VeriScan biometric platform offers tangible proof of traction. Deployments at major U.S. airports such as Chicago O’Hare, Seattle-Tacoma and Nashville support enhanced passenger processing for Customs and Border Protection, reducing wait times while improving accuracy and security. These are not pilot projects but live, mission-critical systems operating at scale, suggesting repeatability and expansion potential as governments modernize border infrastructure. Successful international trials, including threat-detection software testing at Edinburgh Airport, further highlight exportable use cases beyond the United States.

Financially, travel and trade technology provides BBAI with diversification benefits. While defense and intelligence programs can be cyclical and budget-sensitive, airport biometrics align with long-term trends in global travel recovery, automation and security spending. The fragmented nature of this market also creates opportunities for BBAI to consolidate share through the existing digital identity portfolio and future acquisitions aligned with its M&A framework.

Overall, airport biometrics and travel tech appear poised to become a durable secondary growth engine for BBAI — one that leverages its security DNA, delivers scalable deployments and broadens revenue streams as governments worldwide accelerate border and travel modernization.

Competitors in Airport Biometrics & Travel Tech

Among companies with public tickers, Palantir Technologies PLTR represents a powerful adjacent competitor to BigBear.ai in secure travel and border-related use cases. Palantir’s AI-driven data platforms are widely used by government agencies for identity intelligence, threat assessment and operational decision-making. While it does not offer end-to-end biometric hardware, software plays a critical role in analyzing traveler data, risk scoring and integrating multi-source security inputs — areas that overlap with BBAI’s airport and border security ambitions.

Another relevant name is Clear Secure YOU, which has built a strong footprint across U.S. airports through its biometric identity verification services. Clear focuses on accelerating passenger identity checks using facial and fingerprint recognition, directly addressing friction points in airport security. Although its business model is more consumer-centric and narrower than BBAI’s government-focused AI platforms, Clear’s scale and brand recognition highlight the competitive intensity in airport biometrics.

Together, these players show that BBAI’s travel tech push sits within a competitive but fast-growing ecosystem where data intelligence and biometric trust are increasingly strategic.

BBAI’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of the company have lost 30.1% in the past three months compared with the industry’s decrease of 13.5%.

BBAI’s Price Performance

In terms of its forward 12-month price-to-sales ratio, BBAI stock is trading at 11.18, down from the industry’s 13.96.

P/S (F12M)

Over the past 90 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for BBAI’s 2026 loss per share has remained stable.

BBAI currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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