Union Civil Aviation Minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia, on Wednesday said the DigiYatra service will be scaled up to more airports, while operators of Delhi and Bengaluru airports have been asked to install the facility “at all boarding gates” for domestic passengers.
DigiYatra has been launched at three airports in the first phase – Delhi (Terminal 3), Bengaluru, and Varanasi – and will be launched at other airports in a streamlined manner.
The second phase of DigiYatra launch is expected across Vijayawada, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune airports.
According to him, there has been “close to 300,000” downloads for the face recognition application with nearly 4 per cent of all daily domestic passengers travelling out of Delhi and Bengaluru using DigiYatra.
However, Varanasi airport has seen the highest adoption of the service with some 20 per cent of all passengers using the application.
A passenger has to register details on the DigiYatra app using Aadhaar-based validation and a self-image capture. Then the boarding pass has to be scanned and the credentials are shared with the airport.
“We have asked the operators at Bengaluru and Delhi airports to install DigiYatra at all boarding gates for domestic passengers. We are also working on popularising the offering and the Ministry is working to have DigiYatra printing on the boarding pass of passengers, advertise the application on display boards at the airport, among others,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on Civil aviation organised by Assocham.
Airlines have also been asked to make announcements about the application on board. Social media thrust is also being provided as an option to popularise the service.