NEW DELHI: Aadhaar-based biometric authentication and a smartphone will soon be all you’ll need to board domestic flights in India. The Centre will issue the all-approved template of this paperless, hassle-free “digi yatra” by the end of this month.
The process could start by July at Bengaluru and Hyderabad, which have successfully conducted pilot projects.
“This should be ready by the month-end,” aviation secretary R N Choubey told TOI. “Airports Authority of India has prepared bid documents (and will issue tenders). It should roll out the programme at its major airports by the end of this fiscal.” Among
AAI airports, Kolkata, Ahmebadad and Vijaywada may be the first to get the new system.
However, airports will also keep the existing paper-based system in place as linking
Aadhaar to tickets will not be mandatory.
Under the new system, just mobile will be enough to board domestic flights to show e-boarding cards for scanning at security check and boarding gates. Flyers’ biometric authentication will confirm identity, rendering paper ID cards obsolete.
Airport operators and airlines also stand to benefit. The ‘smart’ airports will have smart entry gates with biometric authentication through which the new system will check the menace of passengers entering airport terminals on fake tickets, while also helping airlines know where a missing passenger can be while making frantic calls for them from boarding gate.
