Soon, you will have the option of checking in without carrying a boarding pass if you are flying out from the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru. Your face will be the new boarding pass with the help of a biometric self-boarding technology. Airport authorities said the system will be ready in the first quarter of 2019, with Jet Airways, Air Asia and SpiceJet passengers as first users.
With this, the Bengaluru airport will be the first airport in India as well as Asia to have end-to-end solutions for paperless air travel.
The Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), which runs the airport, made the announcement on Thursday after it signed an agreement with Vision-Box, a digital identity management solution provider.
The contract was signed on Wednesday in Lisbon, Portugal, between BIAL’s MD and CEO Hari Marar and Vision-Box CEO Miguel Leitmann. The ceremony was also attended by the Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa, Minister of Economy Manuel Caldeira Cabral, India’s Ambassador in Portugal Nandini Singla, Secretary of State of Internationalisation Eurico Brilhante Dias and other government representatives.
“Bangalore Airport will continue to lead from the front in transforming air travel in India by leveraging technology. We will continue to offer more delightful experiences to all our passengers as they travel through Bangalore Airport. Vision-Box’s state-of-the-art biometric technology, combined with its passenger flow platform will enable a seamless journey for our passengers, without obstacles, waiting lines or hassles, from registration to boarding,” Marar said.
How the technology works?
Users who want to use this service will have to first register themselves and get their facial biometrics recorded in specialised cameras at the airport on a one-time basis. Following this, they can use their face as the boarding pass by accessing specialised eGates set up for identity authentication.
With these self-clearance checkpoints at the airport, passenger movement will be faster with lesser queuing.
The objective of the exercise is to simplify the journey by making it paperless from registration to boarding. Biometric technology will identify passengers by their face as they move across the Airport, avoiding stops and the repeated presentation of boarding passes, passports or other physical identity documents, BIAL said in a statement.
Vision-Box CEO Miguel Leitmann said, “This is the first end-to-end face recognition-based walkthrough experience in Asia and the largest in the world. It is also one of the most significant steps towards the Digital India campaign endorsed by the Government. Bangalore is in the spotlight, as the modern world gateway to India.”