SITA is a European IT company that provides technology and telecommunications services to the aviation industry.

The company, which is involved in facilitating the DigiYatra programme at 40 state-run airports, is also in discussions with the Adani Group on increasing technology adoption at the infrastructure conglomerate’s seven airports. The DigiYatra app helps facilitate a smooth, paperless air-travel experience.

“They (Adani Group) are looking for a lot in terms of digitalization. We are working with them on certain things in terms of how we can help them to digitalize some of their processes, how we can use data to serve the passenger better. So, we are talking about this,” Sumesh Patel, president of Asia-Pacific at SITA, told Mint.

The company recently revamped the group’s passenger processing system and implemented airport management system, which automates and streamlines core airport operations, at the Adani Group-run airports of Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangaluru, and Mumbai.

In December last year, the company won a contract to implement DigiYatra at 40 airports of the state-owned Airports Authority of India. This will be undertaken in two phases, whereby 12 airports will be covered in the first phase by June, and 28 in the second. These will include airports at Coimbatore, Chennai, Dabolim, Indore, Visakhapatnam, Raipur, Patna, Ranchi, Srinagar, Bagdogra, among others.

Under the DigiYatra scheme, the government aims to create a seamless travel experience for travellers with the use of facial technology for contactless identification at touchpoints such as check-in, security, and boarding zone. The contactless passenger identification facility was launched in December 2022, and is currently available at 13 airports of Delhi, Bengaluru, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata and Vijayawada, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Cochin, Guwahati, Jaipur and Lucknow.

SITA said that greenfield airports such as Jewar and Navi Mumbai are also keen to adopt technologies that will ensure a faster turnaround time for aircraft operations. In July, it had signed up with Noida international airport for airport management system. This will include the provision and operation of systems to allocate gates and counters, boarding bridges, traffic-flow management on the airfield as well as display of flight information to passengers.

“Navi Mumbai is currently going through the evaluation. They have issued the RFPs (request for proposal) and they are going through the evaluation. So, we are participating and are in discussion,” Patel said.

The company is also seeing an increased interest among Indian airlines to adopt technological tools to improve fuel efficiency and lower carbon emissions. In October, full-service carrier Vistara became the first Indian airline to deploy SITA’s technology solutions that will provide pilots with better weather awareness data and enable the airline to save 80 tonnes of fuel per year per aircraft on average and reduce carbon emissions by roughly 250 tonnes annually. For Vistara’s entire fleet, yearly fuel savings are estimated to be more than 5,000 tonnes.

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Published: 08 Feb 2024, 11:35 PM IST