Proposal to do away with boarding pass at airports in India
NEW DELHI: After doing away with hand baggage tags at over a dozen airports, aviation security agencies are now planning to dump the boarding pass collection system and begin a regime of ‘express check-in’ aided by biometrics for smooth air travel.
The chief of the country’s airport security force -- the CISF -- said in an interview that they have begun “exploring” the technology that is required to usher in the boarding card-less system of air travel at the 59 airports that it guards at present and at the rest of such civil facilities that are going to come under its umbrella as part of a “unified command” in the future.
“We are working on two projects. The first is how to introduce integrated security solutions at airports. You need to connect all dots that exist within the security establishment. You have so many strategies to do it...you have the biometrics, video analytics and a very robust access control system. “We will try to interconnect all these things in a very integrated fashion,” CISF Director General O. P. Singh said.
The DG, an IPS officer of the 1983 batch, said doing away with the boarding card system is part of this process and project and a recent initiative launched at the Hyderabad airport for ‘express checkin’ of passengers is an example in that direction. “We may do away with boarding cards too. But, that depends on how strong I become (with regard to technology-based security systems).
“The Hyderabad airport is the only airport in the country that is totally biometric. We are trying to explore this system for all airports,” he said.
The DG said the launch of the new system at the Hyderabad airport is for “every” stakeholder in the airport security to see and that it was a “shining example” when it comes to bringing in smart systems and take new steps to ensure smooth and hassle-free movement of passengers at airports.