For faster check-in, airlines will offer tickets with barcodes

The central government has mandated that airlines to issue flight tickets with barcodes in order to reduce check-in time. The airlines seem unhappy with it and argued against the decision that travel agents sell large quantum of cheap tickets to India and they should not be held responsible for it, a report from those who are aware of the issue said.

A senior official posted at the airport told the press that one of the main bottlenecks at the major airports was the crowd at the entry gates. “The security people at the entry gates have to manually check all the tickets owing to different formats as passengers usually turn up with different formats of tickets. Though the airports like Mumbai and Delhi have 2-D barcode scanners at entry gates, they are still not put into use leading to a massive increase in queuing at the airport gates.

India’s major airports especially primarily Indira Gandhi international airport have been stuck with massive congestion of lately with passengers complaining of long waiting times at entry gates and security checks.

The idea of e-tickets with barcodes was initially suggested by central industrial security force(CISF). The move is also expected to prevent people possessing fake tickets from entering the airports.

Airlines, however, have refuted the idea contending they couldn’t maintain a uniform format for such tickets as travel agents lacks the facility to provide a 2-D barcode.

“IATA, the international air transport agency has mandated that e-tickets should have information only about the PNR, passenger, and his journey. Though a bar code is mandatory but it is usually on the boarding pass. Moreover, small travel agents usually don’t have the resources to issue tickets with barcodes” an executive of the unnamed airlines told the press.

On the contrary, the airlines argued that the center should make in web check-in compulsory and mandatory for every passenger to reduce the congestion a bit.