From Ration Queues To Airport Check-ins: How Digi Yatra CEO Steered Its Flight Upwards

Origins of the concept of the Digi Yatra product in airports traces back to a very simple and ordinary experience that India as a people is attuned to — standing in long queues.

The chief executive officer of the Digi Yatra enterprise, Suresh Khadakbhavi, told NDTV Profit that one thing he grew up seeing around him and wanted to ease is the struggle of standing in these long queues for even the simplest of tasks.

Khadakbhavi, who said he hails from a humble background in the Mumbai suburbs, recounted memories of standing in lines for ration, for filling college applications, for paying the electricity bill. "My mom used to tell me to go and stand in the queue (for ration), queues are something which I think every Indian is used to," he said.

Talking about how the seed for the idea germinated, he said that it was a long journey. Khadakbhavi used to work in the telecom space as a maintenance engineer, his work included repairing fax machines and installing trunk mobile radio systems, from where he moved on to various different roles.

During his time at the Bengaluru international airport, he suggested a conceptual memorable instance where "a passenger walks through all the touch points and no one stops them for anything".

This he said led to the first concept for the app, called "my face is my boarding pass". The app did not win a majority vote initially but later went through various stages of validation to materialise into Digi Yatra.

Digi Yatra, although a private company, got granted government allowance and endorsement because at the time that it was pitched, the aviation ministry was also looking at something that would ease traffic inside airports.

The initiative for mulling over this possibility was taken by the civil aviation secretary. Under him, there was the steering team and the technical working committee, which Khadakbhavi was a part of.

"It took almost a year to bring all the minds together," he added.

One key winning point, according to the CEO, that paved the way for Digi Yatra becoming a reality was that it had value for all stakeholders — from entry, to check-in and to security checks.

"We have taken away all that burden and we have said that you know all these things let it be done in a digital manner so the identity validation happens digitally with a face-to-face match," Khadakbhavi said. "The travel document validation happens with the airline departure control system. Everything is digital so the pain is taken away."