E-boarding goes live at Hyd airport

Aviation Minister inaugurates the facility for domestic fliers

Hyderabad: The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA), owned and operated by the GMR Group in the city, on Monday became the first airport in the country to offer e-boarding facility to domestic fliers. Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju inaugurated the seamless facility which covers all the boarding processes right from entry into the terminal building of the airport to boarding the aircraft.

Developed in-house, the e-boarding solution eliminates the need to manual stamping of boarding cards even for physical boarding cards issued by CUSS (Common Use Self Service) machines or the check-in counters, it said.

Besides, the facility also covers end-to-end all the key passenger processes including entry to terminal, check-in, security check, boarding gate and boarding bridge check before entering the aircraft. With the implementation of E-boarding at RGIA, now a domestic passenger will need only a mobile e-boarding card and his Aadhaar Card number to gain entry into the airport, it said.

Fliers, however, would have flexibility to follow the traditional process of showing a photo-ID to gain entry into the airport in case the Aadhaar number is not available. "We are happy to announce a comprehensive end-to-end E-boarding solution, first time at any Indian airport. After the successful pilot of the project and a go-ahead from Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), we have used our internal capabilities to commence E-boarding (facility) in shortest possible time," said SGK Kishore, CEO, GHIAL.

Aviation policy soon

Meanwhile, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Monday said the much-awaited new aviation policy would be announced soon. The Minister said the policy, which was in final stage of preparation, would go to the Union Cabinet for approval once it was ready.