Altogether 38 airports will be enabled under the Digi Yatra AAP by the end of 2024, catering to 95 percent of air passengers in the country, Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Friday. “Digi Yatra is now working at 13 airports, which are catering to around 85 percent of the domestic passenger capacity in the country,” Scindia told a media conference here. DigiYatra is an industry-led initiative that uses facial recognition technology to make terminal entry and security clearance at the airport a seamless, hassle-free, and paperless process. DigiYatra is a decentralised mobile-based ID storage platform where air travellers can save their IDs and travel documents. Introduced by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) and DigiYatra Foundation, the platform is being touted as the next step towards creating a digitally empowered society. Scindia said the effective measures taken by the ministry in the last one year has helped in decongesting the major airports across the country.
Addressing the media on “Congestion at Airport”, Scindia said multiple steps have been taken including the additional manpower deployment by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and reinforcement of Bureau of Immigration (BoI) staff and departure entry lanes to ease congestion. Giving details of 16 airports including metro cities, the Minister said, “ Departure and entry lanes have been increased from 213 to 312, which is a 46 percent increase in the last one year”. Scindia also informed that number of XIBS X-ray machines has also increased from 234 to 312 in airports across the country. The Minister said between November 2022 to November 2023, there was a 10 percent increase in passenger traffic from 11.6 million to 12.6 million. There was congestion at major airports during last year’s festive season as also in the winter,which was a cause for concern. There were longer waiting times for passenger processing at various touch points, including entry gates, the terminal building, check-in counters of airlines, pre-embarkation security check, immigration, emigration and waiting space at the security hold area. According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the number of passengers carried by domestic airlines during January- November 2023 was 1382.34 lakhs as against 1105.10 lakhs during the corresponding period of the previous year, thereby registering an annual growth of 25.09 % and monthly growth of 9.06%. It said during November 2023, a total of 601 passenger-related complaints had been received by the scheduled domestic airlines. “The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers for November 2023 has been around 0.47,” the ministry data showed.