FCC

Digi Yatra to Expand to 15 More Airports in FY26

2025-06-11

Digi Yatra, the Civil Aviation Ministry’s facial recognition-based air travel initiative, will be rolled out to 15 additional airports in the 2025–26 financial year, according to Siddharth Sharma, Head of IT Operations at Digi Yatra Foundation. The expansion follows successful implementation across all metro and major airports, with the focus now shifting to smaller facilities where demand justifies the upgrade.

Among the new airports adopting Digi Yatra are Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Srinagar, Chandigarh, and Nagpur. While these five are being prepared, other Airports Authority of India (AAI)-run facilities are infrastructure-ready but awaiting final technology integration.

Launched in 2022, Digi Yatra leverages a decentralised ID model, allowing passengers to authenticate their identity using Aadhaar and a boarding pass. The app has been downloaded 14 million times and has supported over 56 million airport journeys to date.

Passengers begin by submitting their Aadhaar number and verifying it via OTP. The system matches a selfie to the Aadhaar image, creating a digitally stamped "verified credential" stored in the user's Digi Yatra wallet. Data minimisation principles are applied—only essential information such as name, gender, date of birth, and masked Aadhaar number is used.

In the next step, passengers upload their boarding pass. The system cross-verifies travel details and matches facial recognition data at the airport gate. If everything matches, access is granted automatically with no human involvement.

On data security, Sharma assures that biometric data is erased from Digi Yatra’s systems within 24 hours of flight departure. Airports also follow strict policies, with audits conducted annually to ensure compliance. In some cases, data is deleted even faster—within four to five hours—based on security agency guidelines.

The initiative reflects India’s broader move toward frictionless, tech-enabled air travel, especially as passenger volumes rise and infrastructure modernisation continues across the aviation sector.