Minister of Civil Aviation, Shri Jyotiraditya M Scindia, chairs Advisory Group Meeting with Airport Operators

Union Minister of Civil Aviation and Steel, Shri Jyotiraditya M Scindia held an Advisory Group Meeting with Airport Operators on 19th December, 2023. With the upcoming season in mind, the Minister emphasized on the importance of preventing congestion at airports. He assured that the ministry is proactively implementing all possible measures to facilitate a smooth and time-saving travel experience for passengers during this period.

In the meeting, the Minister listened to the queries and suggestions from operators and guided them to ensure optimal operations for the convenience of passengers. An important topic of the discussion was the promotion of 'DigiYatra' to enhance the conversion rate from manual to digital check-ins and entry gate processes, ensuring hassle-free and swift passenger movement. Currently, the facility is available for domestic passengers at 13 airports of the country including: Lucknow, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Jaipur, Guwahati, Delhi, Bangalore, Varanasi, Vijayawada, Pune, Hyderabad, and Kolkata airports. In the discussion, the suggestion of integrating 'DigiYatra' for international passenger access at both departure and arrival. To explore best practices, the airport operators were also tasked with presenting biometric enabled models being successfully used in other countries.

Moving ahead, the Minister also reviewed the Capital Expenditure target of all airport operators, aligning it with the actuals obtained in Q3.

The meeting was attended by all airport operators including GMR Airports, Adani Airports, BIAL, Cochin Airport and the Airports Authority of India. The Secretary Civil Aviation, Shri Vumlunmang Vualnam, DG BCAS, Shri Zulfiqar Hasan, DG DGCA, Shri Vikram Devdutt and other Joint secretaries and senior officials of the Ministry were also present in the meeting.

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YB/PS