Paperless travel takes flight at Bengaluru airport

Bengaluru airport rolls out biometric-based self-boarding facility

Passengers travelling from Bengaluru to Mumbai on Monday by Vistara were the first to experience paperless travel.

Air passengers at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) now have the option of boarding a flight without producing travel documents at each touch point with the KIA rolling out a biometric-based self-boarding facility.

Passengers travelling from Bengaluru to Mumbai on Monday by Vistara were the first to experience paperless travel.

To avail this facility, a passenger has to enrol their ID, biometric data and flight details before entering the terminal. The passenger will be authenticated and verified at every touch point by biometric technology.

Final phase next year

The Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), the operator of the KIA, is expected to deploy the paperless biometric system at over 350 passenger touch points in Terminal 1 with the final phase of the project expected to be completed next year.

In a release on Tuesday, BIAL stated: “Over the next few months, this process is expected to be integrated with check-in / self-bag-drop to include other domestic and international airlines at Bengaluru airport. In the final stage, this technology will be integrated with the Digi Yatra Central Platform that is currently being architectured by the central government’s Digi Yatra Foundation.”

'Privacy protected '

The BIAL maintains that biometric data is used only for authentication and verification of passengers to assist the boarding process, and not for recognition.

“The process offers the highest degree of safety and security while ensuring stringent standards of safety,” stated the release, adding that passenger data will be deleted within a few hours of completion of air travel.

Hari Marar, MD and CEO of BIAL, stated: “Once we trial the full end-to-end process successfully and integrate it into the Digi Yatra platform, the technology and process will be used extensively for seamless flow in our upcoming Terminal 2 project as well.”

The release further stated that Vision Box, the company that developed and installed One - ID biometric platform technology, is compliant with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which adopts privacy by design principles.