E-boarding now live for international passengers at Hyderabad Airport

Emirates airlines commenced this facility for its Dubai bound passengers who e-boarded themselves on the EK 527 flight. GMR-led Hyderabad International Airport is credited as the first and the only airport in India to offer truly end-to-end paperless e-boarding to all its domestic passengers across all flights.

It could be recalled that the Hyderabad airport went live for its domestic e-boarding facility in December 2015. The airport is currently handling every scheduled domestic operation through this end-to-end paperless e-boarding procedure. The international airport has started rolling out this indigenously developed digital solution to international flights from December 2020, becoming the first airport in India to do so.

"We are glad that Emirates has also started using our indigenously developed e-boarding process. It is the first in the fleet of international airlines to do so. The GMR Hyderabad International Airport is continuously striving for excellence when it comes to seamless passenger experience and the aim is to have systems and processes which are quicker and contactless. We are confident that in the days to come all international airlines will start using e-boarding towards our goal of paperless airport," said, Pradeep Panicker, CEO, GMR Hyderabad International Airport (GHIAL).

GHIAL's international e-boarding service ramps up safe travel options for international passengers choosing to fly out of Hyderabad. Based on a rigorous and successful pilot project the government had given nod to the Hyderabad airport to roll out its e-boarding services for international flights.

The e-boarding solution is fully backward-compatible and passengers would be free to choose between using conventional paper boarding passes or electronic boarding passes on their mobile phones. Some of the key benefits of international e-boarding include enhanced passenger experience, reducing queue waiting time at the airport, no redundancies at checkpoints and helps airlines optimise their processes and improve resource utilisation. The real-time data availability of all passenger check points helps enhance airport's operational efficiency and enhanced overall safety and security of airport.

Special screening and safety measures are in place at the airport to protect against the COVID-19 spread, which includes thermal screening prior to terminal entry, mandatory social distancing enforced through special queuing arrangements at all passenger processing points. An RT-PCR testing facility is also functioning at the airport for passenger screening.