Aadhaar and biometric screening to make boarding at Bengaluru airport a 15-minute affair

With a test project yielding satisfactory results in February 2017, Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL) authorities have decided to make Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) India's first Aadhaar-enabled airport. The biometric screening will do away with the hassle of handling tickets, ID, and luggage. This initiative is in keeping with the Smart Airport vision.

In this context, the Ministry of Central Aviation will link airline databases and identities of the passengers through Aadhaar numbers and passport IDs.

According to a report by The Times of India, the airport authorities will have clear visibility on whether the passengers have cleared the check-in and security gates before they are on their way to the final boarding gates. Secretary of Aviation RN Choubey said,

"We have set up a special unit in Airports Authority of India for giving shape to this 'digi yatra' programme. Airport operators, especially from Bengaluru and Hyderabad, are part of this as they have done a lot of work in this field.

This initiative, which BIAL hopes to roll out by December 2018, will drastically cut down the waiting time, making the entire boarding process a 15-minute affair. Choubey told Deccan Chronicle,

"We will soon know the indicative cost of the project and time frame in which it can be implemented."

Hari Marar, Executive Director and President, BIAL, told The Times of India,

"A key driver to creating an airport of the future is to embrace technologies that simplify, streamline, and enhance travel processes. And as we continue to see exponential growth in passenger traffic, there's an urgency to implement systems that allow quicker transit time, ensuring the smooth ingress and egress of passengers."

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