DigiYatra bounces back after a fortnight

Kolkata: After stuttering for a fortnight when one in three flyers used the facial recognition technology to access the airport instead of one in two earlier, the DigiYatra app is back in favour among passengers travelling through Kolkata airport.
Over the past week, over 3,500 flyers have been using the DigiYatra app daily to enter the airport terminal and undergo security checks, up from 800 flyers who were using it daily between March 26 and April 12.The numbers had crashed because flyers were unable to upload their boarding pass on the app. The problem had occurred after DigiYatra Foundation that operates the app undertook an upgrade to improve data security. This left the old app defunct and required frequent flyers who used the app to download and register again.

Speaking to TOI, an official at Kolkata airport said number of passengers using the app had bounced back to 25% of passengers who accessed the DigiYatra facility. The remaining 75% passengers use DigiYatra after registering through kiosks on arrival at the airport. There are 15 registration kiosks at the airport.
“When the DigiYatra app changeover happened, the number of passengers who used the app crashed by over 70%. However, the dip in overall DigiYatra use was lower — from 12,000 a day to around 11,000 — as we had stepped up the drive to help passengers use the facility via the kiosk available near terminal entrances at the departure level,” the official said.
DigiBuddy executives who facilitate passengers using DigiYatra on arrival at the airport, are urging passengers to download the app and upload their boarding passes before arriving at the airport so that they can enter the airport in a jiffy instead of spending 3-4 minutes in the heat.
“Once a passenger has the boarding pass on the app, the person can just pass through the facial recognition channel in a few seconds and enter the AC terminal instead of standing in queue to register through the kiosk or use the conventional gates to enter,” a DigiBuddy explained.
Now, all airlines except Akasa and FlyBig are registered on the DigiYatra platform.
While there are 12 DigiYatra channels at the entrance to the domestic terminal, there are two channels each at five security portals. Also, there are 34 channels installed at 18 boarding gates. Kolkata airport plans to next install DigiYatra gates at the domestic-to-domestic transfer so that flyers who touch down in Kolkata and have to then fly out can also avail of the facility. At present, around 3,500 passengers use the domestic-to-domestic transfer facility at the airport.