Long queues in airports might be a thing of the past; here is how

The long queues at entry, check-in counters and boarding gates at airports could be a thing of the past. Soon, flyers can use their facial identity for swift and hassle-free movement inside airports. The ministry of civil aviation is planning to roll out this paperless travel scheme, called DigiYatra, starting January next year, with a pilot project at Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi airport.

“ DigiYatra is planned for four AAI Airports (Kolkata, Vijaywada, Varanasi and Pune) in the first phase. The pilot project at Varanasi is expected to take off in January 2019. The facility at these phase-1 airports will be available by July 2019,” Airport Authority of India (AAI) chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra told FE. For this, airport operators will form a joint venture to steer the DigiYatra project.

A passenger opting for digital travel needs to enrol for the DigiYatra portal, creating a unique ID. This special number would contain details like name and email ID of the air travellers. The DigiYatra ID will also form part of the travel ticket. As per government officials, a passenger’s image captured at the airport will facilitate movement throughout the travel lifecycle.

“Primary dependence on Aadhaar will not be there in the new model. Facial recognition would be used as a tool to facilitate DigiYatra because face is the least offensive of the biometric,” an official said.
“At the airport, passengers will have to authenticate the details filled in the DigiYatra portal. A picture taken at the airport will form part of the local database stored against the DigiYatra ID of a passenger, which will facilitate movement at other airports,” he explained.

The state-owned airport operator had plans to facilitate passenger movement through Aadhaar-based biometric authentication. But the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had denied permission to share the biometric details of citizens with airport operators. There have been several incidents of Aadhaar data leaks raising doubts over the safety of biometrics.

The draft proposal laying the guidelines for DigiYatra is likely to be finalised in the coming days. The ministry has discussed the latest model with Infosys co-founder and the man behind the UIDAI, Nandan Nilekani, and other stakeholders like private airport operators, Directorate General of Civil Aviation and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security.

Indian airports have an annual capacity of 334 million passengers.

AAI estimates airport traffic to double in the next decade, with domestic air travel demand growing at 17% annually.