How to link your Aadhaar number with flight ticket for faster airport entry

Soon, domestic flyers will have the option to link their Aadhaar number to air tickets for faster airport entry. Air passengers flying out of Kolkata, Ahmebadad and Vijayawada can avail Aadhaar-based seamless travel experience from 2018 under Modi government's 'digi yatra' programme. Airports Authority of India (AAI) has plans to implement the programme in other airports too.

Similar to marquee airports such as Schiphol (Amsterdam), Brisbane and Hamad (Doha), travellers could soon enter Indian airports without flashing their identity cards and clear the check-in process through fingerprints and iris scan.

AAI chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra told TOI: "Under the Aadhaar-based system, flyers will use stored biometrics to prove identity to enter terminals; their Aadhaar-linked airline database will show what flight they are booked on and similarly linked airport databases will show they have been security screened and allowed access to boarding gate closer to the flight departure time.

Procedure

1. Aadhaar number must be entered while booking the flight ticket

2. At airport entry, an E-gate will read the ticket's bar code containing ticket information and Aadhaar information

3. The system will authenticate travel details

4. Passenger will present biometric for Aadhaar authentication

5. On successful authentication, the E-gate will open

Passengers opting for an identity other than Aadhaar, will have to go through the manual process of verification by CISF at the entry gate.

In a small way, the process has already been tried — at a few gates of the GMR-owned Hyderabad airport. The Bengaluru airport, which is owned by the Fairfax and GVK group, is also using biometric information-enabled checking points for swift check-ins.

At entry, a special kiosk scans the passenger's hand to match his or her ID. The boarding pass embedded with the Aadhaar number or a copy on a phone can be shown to authenticate the passenger with a show of his or her hand. At the frisking stage and boarding gate too, the passenger is identified by hand and provided with a paper stub with the flight details, that is produced at the aircraft door.

Points to note:

* The linked airport databases will show if the passenger has been through checkin and security check gates before being allowed access to the boarding gate closer to flight departure time.

* International flyers will still need passports to travel.

* This will cut down the time a passenger spends in airport queues

DigiYatra- A digital experience for air travellers 

According to MoS Jayant Sinha, DigiYatra is built on 4 pillars - Connected Passengers, Connected Airports, Connected Flying and Connected Systems

Through DigiYatra passengers can:

* Plan their trips efficiently by identifying price trends and estimate future airfares at the time of ticket booking

* Optionally link their Aadhaar to airlines for faster airport entry

* Walk-through security scanners swiftly owing to advanced biometric security solutions

* Receive relevant information pertaining to various facilities, protocols, airline timings, queue lengths at airports, etc

* Get real-time notifications about congestion and delays of flights

* Navigate through the airport using digital guidance systems, interactive kiosks and augmented reality apps

* Book in-flight services and destination based offerings digitally

* Get a prompt when their luggage reaches the baggage claim belt