The CUSS Handbook / About this handbook
About this handbook
The CUSS Handbook is an independent reference on airport common-use self-service technology. It explains an industry standard and the rules around it. It sells nothing, represents nobody, and has no commercial relationship with any party in the market it describes.
Independence and non-affiliation
The CUSS Handbook is an independent, vendor-neutral reference. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or connected to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Airports Council International (ACI), SITA, MATERNA, or any kiosk manufacturer, platform supplier, application supplier, airline or airport operator.
We sell nothing, we certify nothing, and we do not represent any vendor.
CUSS (Common Use Self Service) and CUPPS (Common Use Passenger Processing Systems) are open industry standards published by IATA, and are described here on that basis. Any company or product name appearing on this site is the property of its owner and is used only for factual description or, in this notice, to disclaim a connection.
The authoritative texts are the Recommended Practices and technical specifications published by IATA, and the regulations published by the relevant authorities. Where this site and a published standard disagree, the standard governs.
Who it is for
Airport IT and terminal operations staff. Airline airport-systems and distribution teams. Consultants writing requirements. Procurement and accessibility officers who need to know what a claim of conformance does and does not cover. Students of air transport operations. Anyone, in short, who has to understand common use without a supplier standing over their shoulder.
It assumes no prior knowledge of the standards and does not assume an engineering background, though the architecture page gets more technical than the rest.
How it is written
Three rules govern the content.
Everything is attributable. Version numbers, Recommended Practice numbers, publication dates and regulatory requirements come from the standards bodies and regulators themselves. The sources page lists every one, annotated with what it is actually useful for. If a claim here cannot be traced to that list, treat it as opinion.
No vendor content. Vendor blogs, product pages and case studies are not cited, and no supplier, platform or product is recommended, compared or named as a market participant. Much of the public writing on this subject is marketing, and a reference that leans on it inherits its framing.
No second-hand deployment history. We do not repeat accounts of what a particular airport, airline or supplier did, when, or first. Those stories belong to the organisations that lived them, they are frequently distorted in retelling, and getting them wrong would be a false statement about a real company. Where the history page gives dates, they are standards milestones attributable to a standards body.
What it is not
- Not the standard. It summarises; it does not substitute. Specification, procurement and certification work needs the published documents.
- Not legal advice. The accessibility page summarises a US regulation in plain terms. Compliance decisions need the regulation and proper advice.
- Not a certification body. Nothing here confers, verifies or evidences conformance with anything.
- Not a buyer's guide. The evaluation page suggests questions to ask. It does not suggest answers, and it names no supplier.
- Not current-awareness. Standards move. Check the version and the roadmap at the source before relying on anything dated here.
Corrections
Standards change, versions supersede one another and regulations are amended. If something here is out of date or wrong, the primary source is the arbiter — start with the sources page, which points at the canonical location for each claim. This site carries no advertising, no tracking beyond ordinary server logs, and no commercial arrangement with anyone in the industry it describes.