DigiYatra to speed up airport check-in process

Coimbatore: The city airport is gearing up to introduce the DigiYatra project by the end of June this year to make passenger ID and travel document verification faster for domestic fliers.
At least 25 domestic flights and two international flights are operated from the city airport daily.Presently, a traveller has to pass through various checkpoints at the airport for boarding.To ease this process, the civil aviation ministry had recently announced the plans to launch the DigiYatra project in 12 more airports, including Chennai, Coimbatore and Vizagapatnam, at a cost of 99 crore.
Speaking about the project, S Senthilvalavan, city airport director, said, “DigiYatra is a mobile application-based facility to achieve contactless processing of passengers at airports based on facial recognition technology. Registration on the DigiYatra app is a one-time process. Passengers don’t have to register every time they travel. But for each trip, they just need to add the new travel document and share their credentials before travel.”
DigiYatra, he said, would make passenger ID and travel document verification faster. “Passengers need not handover physical documents to CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) security or airline staff. Passengers’ time will be saved in this process.” He said the face biometric registration was not compulsory. “It is voluntary. There will be two options at the checkpoints. Passengers could opt for either face biometrics or manual checking process. This facility could be used only by domestic passengers.”
According to another source, the city airport handles around 28 lakh to 30 lakh passengers annually. “After the implementation of the DigiYatra project, we could handle a larger number of passengers, if additional flights operate from the airport.”
By the end of June, the source said, the project would be implemented at the city airport. “A work order regarding this has been issued to SITA, an air transport communications and information technology service provider. They will take care of maintenance and operation of the DigiYatra facility in the airport.”