In Covid times, boarding at IGI goes contactless

NEW DELHI: Indira Gandhi International Airport has introduced an e-boarding facility to ensure “seamless and contactless digital travel” for passengers, its operator DIAL said on Monday.
The e-boarding gates have already been set up at Terminal 3 and Terminal 2 while deployment is in progress at Terminal 1, DIAL said. Sources at the airport said five such facilities will be functional each at T2 and T3 and four at T1 in the coming weeks.
Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, DIAL’s CEO, said the pandemic has made it more challenging to meet the travellers’ expectations as health and safety concerns have increased.
“DIAL has responded to the challenge and set a benchmark with innovative solutions, such as the e-boarding gates that have been installed at the airport. Our team carried out several trials, keeping in view the Covid-19 guidelines issued by various agencies. The sole aim is to keep our passengers safe at any cost,” Jaipuriar said.
The contactless e-boarding gates are equipped with card scanners, which allow passengers to flash their physical or e-boarding passes to verify flight details so that they can proceed for security checks, DIAL said in a statement. It added that passengers who get their boarding passes verified by scanning at the e-gates will not need to show their documents again.
There are three different lanes at the e-boarding gates — wide, ‘normal’ and dual. A wide-lane e-gate is for passengers carrying heavy luggage or those with reduced mobility. Passengers carrying only hand baggage can walk through the e-gates designated as ‘normal’. A dual option will offer both wide and ‘normal’ lanes.
DIAL said the touchless procedure not only minimises the touching of facility surfaces and interaction among people in the times of Covid-19, but also reduces the boarding time.
“The cutting-edge technology has reduced 50% of the transaction time, resulting in lower queues, and has also improved the security aspect where boarding card details are verified with airlines back office,” it added.
Meanwhile, the operator confirmed that it has also installed e-processing kiosks at T2 entry gates. Over the next few weeks, they would be installed at Terminal 3 and Terminal 1 as well. “This will further reduce the travel documents’ validation time for CISF personnel significantly and offer an end-to-end seamless and contactless digital travel experience to the passengers,” said DIAL.