Chennai Airport prepares for paperless tickets using smartphones, tablets and laptops

Just after the BCAS(Bureau of Civil aviation Security) announced that, like the Indian Railways, Airports in India can accept tickets on phone or any computing device, the Chennai Airport has started preparations for the same. If implemented, passengers will be permitted into terminal buildings with tickets in digital form, but the boarding pass will still have to be paper once checked in.

This move comes in the wake of the Indian Railways, an inferior yet highly used mode of public transport started accepting e-tickets through SMS and on any screen provided with the ticket. Likewise, all the major Airports will go paperless soon and that is a welcome change for frequent travelers and people who are frustrated with slow changing digitization of public transport.

Chennai Airport authorities are reportedly being trained to look for the appropriate information in digital tickets, as the formatting may vary. Since print out tickets are mandatory and a lack of easy print solutions inside the Airport complex are less, people who forget their tickets clobber for limited and pricey solutions in some airline stations.  It is also said that the CISF who take care of the entry points into the Airport will be trained to look at the PNR on the digital form of the ticket.

It is about time that digital Wallets and passbook support arrive, for eliminating paper boarding passes, but I guess that is still a distant dream.

Source TOI  Image via The Hindu