Soon air passengers can enjoy paperless boarding

Domestic air passengers could soon be enjoying a complete paperless boarding experience at airports as the government under a biometric-based 'digi-yatra' initiative will provide them a unique ID for hassle-free entry.

For this, passengers need to enrol with the programme through the government's revamped AirSewa-II portal to generate a 'digi-yatra' ID for paperless service.

"We are utilising Aadhaar infrastructure to first authenticate a passenger and thereafter we will be developing the database and identification procedures so that people can get into the airport without any paper. It will improve convenience and increase the throughput of our airports," Minister of State Jayant Sinha told reporters here.

The Aadhaar-based verification will, however, be done only once, he said, clarifying that the initiative is "voluntary" and passengers are free to decide on enrolling for digi-yatra.

"The architecture is designed in a way to ensure privacy is fully protected. Supreme Court has said that privacy is a fundamental right. The privacy has been build into the digital yatra system," Sinha said.

Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey said passengers can enter the airport via an "e-gate" after a face-based identification process.

The system, he said, will be a win-win situation both for the passengers, the security apparatus and the airlines. The system will ensure shorter queue, faster boarding, self baggage drop and self check-in.

One need not go to the airline counter. The number of security personnel could come down, leading to cost reduction. With fewer airline staff, ticket prices could also come down.

Airports in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Varanasi and Vijayawada will role out the programme in phases by January 2019.