Four airports of the Airports Authority of India (AAI)– Varanasi, Pune, Kolkata and Vijayawada and three joint venture airports– Hyderabad, Bangalore and New Delhi have completed preliminary testing of the Digi Yatra biometric boarding system, the government has informed the Parliament. The Digi Yatra scheme will be implemented across various airports in a phased manner. It is planned to go live at selected airports in 2022, in its first phase, General VK Singh (retd), minister of state for civil aviation informed the Lower House.
“Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem is aligned to the global processes of International Air Travel Association (IATA) for interoperability for seamless international travel,” he said.
Singh had, last week, informed the parliament that the AAI is working on a project of FRT-based Biometric Boarding System as part of the first phase of Digi Yatra implementation at four airports.
“While facial recognition technology (FRT) has not yet been introduced at any of the airports in India, the AAI is working on a project of FRT-based Biometric Boarding System as part of the first phase of Digi Yatra Implementation at four airports, including Varanasi, Pune, Kolkata, and Vijayawada,” Singh said.
The minister said that for availing the Digi Yatra services, passengers would need to send the travel details (Pax details, PNR and Facial Biometrics) through an app to the biometric boarding system of the departing airport. Moreover, if for a particular journey, the passenger does not want to avail the Digi Yatra services then the passenger would have an option to not send the data and use the existing manual process at airports.
