In a move aimed to fructify the government's concept of "Digiyatra" at Indian airports, air transport IT and communications service provider SITA is all set to help India lead the way in fully biometric air travels. "Leveraging India's national Aadhaar biometric identity system with our Smart Path technology, SITA will deliver a seamless biometric experience across all airlines and airports — both domestic and international — in India," said Maneesh Jaikrishna, SITA Vice President – Indian Subcontinent, Eastern and Southern Africa. "This will allow passengers to use their biometric identity, no matter where they travel," Jaikrishna said speaking at the "Air Transport IT Summit" in Jaipur.
The paperless travel experience for passengers will be delivered across India leveraging Aadhaar to create the world's most efficient travel system, he added. Elaborating on the concept, he said that citizens' national biometric identification cards and foreigners' passports would be linked with the databases of airlines, airports and other stakeholders, promising a seamless and secure travel experience at every step in the journey.
According to a research appearing in SITA's "2017 Passenger IT Trends Survey", Indian passengers show greater willingness to use biometrics to speed up their journey through the airport.
In another innovative move, the company has also provided a solution for smart and secure handling of passengers' baggage.
"Soon, 15 airports in India will start getting real-time information on the status of passengers' baggage, which will significantly reduce the chances of baggage mishandling," Jaikrishna said.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI), which manages 126 airports across India, has expanded SITA's baggage management solution "BagManager" to 15 airports in India to improve the baggage handling operations there.
These 15 airports — Thiruvananthapuram, Calicut, Mangalore, Tirupati, Chennai, Madurai, Kolkata, Goa, Lucknow, Jaipur, Amritsar, Leh, Chandigarh, Trichy and Ahmedabad — are in addition to the Kolkata and Chennai airports, where BagManager was implemented in 2015, he informed.
Batting for the solution, AAI Chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra said: "As the passenger traffic increases, we need to be smarter in the way we manage our airports and smart technology is the answer in this perspective."