To enable seamless entry into the airport premises, the Ministry of Civil Aviation on Wednesday announced that Digi Yatra will be launched at Chennai airport by March 31, 2024. 

Digi Yatra provides contactless, and seamless passenger movement at various checkpoints at airports with its Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). At present, this facility is available at 13 airports across the country 

Mentioning in a statement, the civil aviation ministry said Digi Yatra will be launched at the Chennai airport by March 31 next month. 

“The number of passengers having installed the Digi Yatra application on their mobile phones has increased to 45.8 Lakhs as of February 10, 2024. It’s an increase of 20.5 percent from 38 lakhs as of 1st January 2024,” the ministry further added. 

As of February 10, 2024, 21.1 lakh Android and 24.6 lakh iOS users are taking the services of the app.  

Notably, the Digi Yatra service was initially launched at three airports viz New Delhi, Bengaluru, and Varanasi in December 2022. Later, it was started in 10 more airports.

Expansion of Digi Yatri

In January last month, the government informed about the expansion plan of Digi Yatra initiative to 14 additional airports in the coming days. 

The expansion plans include introducing Digi Yatra at airports such as Chennai, Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore, and several others by March this year. 

Further, the list of airports set to adopt Digi Yatra also includes Bagdogra, Dabolim, Mopa Goa, Indore, Chandigarh, Ranchi, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Visakhapatnam and Srinagar, an official statement mentioned.

Besides this, the initiative is slated to be extended to 11 more airports by 2025, delineating the government’s commitment to modernising air travel infrastructure.

All about Digi Yatra 

DigiYatra is a civil aviation ministry’s digital air travel app. With this, the passengers can be automatically processed based on a facial recognition system at checkpoints like entry & exit check-in, and aircraft boarding.

Additionally, it also facilitates self-bag drop, using facial recognition to identify pax and data recall.