Digi Yatra bounces back at airport, flyers breathe easy

Kolkata: A day after a snag in the Digi Yatra system inconvenienced passengers at the city airport, flyers used the seamless recognition facility without any hitch on Monday. Digi Yatra usage bounced back to around 30%–31% of domestic flyers departing Kolkata, up from 15%–17% on Sunday."By Monday evening, more than 5,000 passengers used the Digi Yatra facility. We expect the usage to hit the 7,000 mark by the end of the day. That is the usual count on an average day in Kolkata," an airport official told TOI.
The snag grounded the DigiYatra system on Sunday morning, forcing flyers to use the manual gates for entry. This led to long queues as passengers had to furnish ID proof and boarding pass to CISF personnel at the gate. Though the problem was fixed around 9.45 am, passengers continued to encounter difficulties as data uploaded during the snag period did not register in the system. "Passengers had to re-share the boarding card data to use the facility. Those who did so were able to use it, while others went the manual way," the official said.Sources said the Digi Yatra team was taking measures to ensure that the problem did not recur. "The root cause analysis was done. Corrective measures will be initiated at the central level," a source said.For many regular flyers, Monday's smooth operations came as a relief. Gobindo Poddar, a Dum Dum resident travelling to Hyderabad, said he was unaware of Sunday's glitch and experienced no difficulty using the dedicated Digi Yatra channel. "I started late from home on Monday. If I had to stand in a regular queue instead of using the DigiYatra e-gates, it would have been very stressful," he said.Souvik Dey, a Belur resident flying to Chennai, echoed the sentiment. A regular user of the system for over two-and-a-half years, he said facial recognition technology has become central to global air travel. "We have become so accustomed to using it that without this facility, travelling feels far more cumbersome," he said, adding that Kolkata was among the early adopters of the service.