Hyderabad (Aryavarth): Hyderabad has become the first airport in India to enable E-boarding for international flights.
“GMR led Hyderabad International Airport has the credit to be the first and only airport in India to offer truly end-to-end paperless E-boarding to all its domestic passengers across all flights. Building on this laurel, under the true spirit of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, GMR Hyderabad International Airport has now started rolling out this indigenously developed digital solution to international flights, becoming the first airport in India to do so. This marks a significant milestone in the history of Indian aviation,” said a press statement.
“In line with the Government of India’s Digital India campaign, GHIAL’s international e-boarding service ramps up safe travel options for international passengers choosing to fly out of Hyderabad. The service is currently available for select international flights of IndiGo Airlines. Hyderabad International Airport rolled out its e-boarding services for international flights after the government’s nod based on a rigorous and successful pilot,” it added.
It said, as a key partner to this initiative, IndiGo Airlines became the maiden carrier to commence this facility when their Sharjah-bound passengers e-boarded themselves from Hyderabad on the 6E 1405 flight on October 2, 2020. Other scheduled international carriers operating out of Hyderabad are in the process of integration with the airport’s e-boarding system, which will be rolled out soon.
According to the press release, speaking about this significant achievement, Pradeep Panicker, CEO, GHIAL, said, “Leveraging tech-enabled solutions to continuously elevate passenger experience is our key focus area. In line with this, we are delighted to announce that after about five years of successfully operating e-boarding for domestic flights, we have launched the E-boarding solution for international operations as well – another first for any Indian airport. In the present scenario of the pandemic, automating the passenger journey provides a more pleasant airport experience. After the successful pilot of the project and all regulatory approvals, we have used our internal capabilities to take up e-boarding solution for international operations.”
The E-boarding solution is fully backwards-compatible, and passengers would be free to choose between using conventional paper boarding passes or electronic boarding passes on their mobile phones to use the system, it added.
Some of the key benefits out of International E-boarding include–Enhanced passenger experience as it helps in reducing queue waiting time at the airport. As an advance security solution, e-boarding removes redundancies at checkpoints. Helps airlines to optimise their processes and improve their resource utilisation.
The real-time data availability of all passenger checkpoints helps airport to continuously enhance its operational efficiency. Enhances overall safety and security of the airport, it added.
