Bengaluru: Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) will soon introduce self check-in facility to help passengers get boarding pass without much hassle.
Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) Director General (DG) Rajesh Ranjan, who was in the city, said, “Bengaluru being a tech hub there’s lot of emphasis on e-governance and e-handling at the airport to minimize check-in time for passengers and enhance the ease of travel.” CISF is in charge of security at KIA.
KIA will soon have 16 self check-in kiosks and two assisted kiosks, through which passengers can check in and get a boarding pass without going to the counters. The baggage can then be sent to the airlines from the kiosk.
Currently there are few such kiosks at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) at New Delhi.
“To decongest the airport we are in discussion with the airport authority to do away with the stamping of the boarding passes as is being done at Hyderabad. The passengers can swipe the boarding pass at the scanner, which will recognise the barcode and allow him in. The details are yet to be finalized,” Ranjan said.
He, however, added that the ‘digi yatra’ initiative by the Airports Authority of India, under which a passenger can swipe his Aadhar card at the entrance of the airport and travel seamlessly from the entry to security booths, has been put on hold for the time being.
Threat from UAVs
As for perceived threat from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to civil aviation in the country, Ranjan said the Ministry of Home Affairs has drawn standard operating procedures (SOPs) to deal with the “emerging challenges” posed by the UAVs.
“This is a new emerging area and we are following the SOPs, which have been defined by the MHA. Depending upon the threat perception there will be a quick multi agency response,” Ranjan said.
The CISF DG said besides providing a security blanket to the airport and passengers, the CISF personnel have been trained in soft skills to handle passengers with sensitivity, especially those, who are wheel chair bound.
Disabled passengers
“CISF is the only airline security force in the world, which has been trained to handle passengers with special needs with compassion and care. Unless it’s absolutely essential CISF personnel have been trained to not insist on asking passengers with prosthetics to take them off for security check. They have also been trained to handle passengers with motor disability like autism with care and empathy,” the CISF DG said.
KIA is the third busiest International Airport in the country, after Delhi’s IGI and Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in terms of footfalls and flight operations. The annual passenger volume at the KIA is around 37 million.
