Digi Yatra Begins International Trials at Seven Airports

Digi Yatra, the face-recognition based travel facility of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, has opened its first trials for international passengers. Until now the service worked only on domestic flights. The trials run from November to December 2026 and are open to Indian nationals who hold an e-passport and are flying on selected international services of Air India and IndiGo.

The seven airports

The trial is on at Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Cochin, Mumbai, Chennai and Amritsar. Where the equipment is in place, a passenger may use the facility at three points: the entry to the terminal, the Security Hold Area (SHA) and the boarding gate. What passengers say during these two months will shape the plan for a wider rollout in 2027.

How a passenger joins

• Create an e-passport based Verifiable Credential (VC) on the Digi Yatra mobile application.
• Scan the Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) printed on the e-passport.
• Read the chip inside the passport using the Near Field Communication (NFC) feature of a suitable smartphone.
• Take a selfie and confirm the details, after which the credential sits in the Digi Yatra wallet on the passenger's own device.

It does not replace documents

The facility is meant to work with the existing system of checks, not in place of it. A traveller still has to carry travel documents and go through the airline's document check, immigration and every other formality that applies.

How far Digi Yatra has spread

The platform has crossed 26.5 million users and has carried more than 110 million journeys across 39 domestic airports for domestic airlines. A further 25 domestic airports are to be brought in by 2027. The ministry places the step within the government's aims of Digital India and of making flying easier.