Digi Yatra: Paperless entry at Delhi airport's T2 from April; all you need to know

An official from the Ministry of Civil Aviation confirmed the news, saying, "Various surveys are underway to expand the Digi Yatra facility to T2 in Delhi, which handles 49,000 passengers per day."

"Detailed studies must be carried out before the infrastructure for the installation of the facility at T2 is established. Final contacts between the airport operator and the ministry are underway," an official told B2B.

"We hope that the installation will be available for travellers in April," he continued, "but the process of installing the Digi Yatra at T2 has been intensified."

Currently, only passengers traveling on domestic flights from Delhi Airport Terminal 3 use the Digi Yatra facilities.

What is Digi Yatra?

Digi Yatra is designed to achieve seamless and contactless passenger processing at airports based on facial recognition technology (FRT). With Digi Yatra, passenger data can be automatically processed based on the facial recognition system at various checkpoints, including security check areas.

Travelers can get their Digi Yatra ID by sharing information like name, email address, mobile phone number, identification details (Aadhaar, driver's license, voter ID, etc.).

The app is available on Android and iOS phones and can be downloaded on any smartphone using the Google Play Store for Android and the App Store for iPhone.

Digi Yatra was launched in December 2022 and initially rolled out in Delhi, Bengaluru and Varanasi Airport. An official later said that the facility will be rolled out at airports in Kolkata, Pune, Vijayawada and Hyderabad from March 2023.

During the 74th Republic Day celebration at the Air Traffic Control Services (AAI-ATC) building in Delhi, the AAI President said, “Digi Yatra is an important step that we have been able to implement after 3-4 years of hard work. AAI has been actively involved under the supervision of the Ministry and with the help of private operators, we have created a turnkey ecosystem where the software is manufactured separately and the hardware is kept at the airport so that passengers can obtain faceless identification and travel faster."

"When passengers arrive at the airport, they first go through a security check, then at check-in and inside another security check at the boarding gate. At these locations, they had to show their ID and boarding passes. A step in the implementation of the paperless system to travel calmly and without these documents”.

How will Digi Yatra based facial recognition entry work at airports?

First of all, you must register. In case the passenger opts for Aadhar based verification, the identity verification will be done online. Upon successful verification, facial biometrics will be captured and stored in the passenger's Digi Yatra profile.

However, if the passenger chooses any other ID to create a Digi Yatra ID, the personal security will perform the verification manually and the facial biometrics will be captured and stored in the Digi Yatra ID profile. Through this process, the registration is complete.

In the next step, the boarding pass must be scanned and the credentials shared with the airport.