Your flight boarding pass will not be torn anymore

New Delhi: Passengers' boarding passes will no more be required to be torn before boarding a flight, with aviation security watchdog BCAS scrapping the decades-old mandatory requirement for the airlines.

The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has told carriers that they would not be required anymore to keep the stub -- the portion of the boarding pass retained by carriers.

The decision has been taken at a time when the government is working on facilitating entry into airports with the help of mobile phone and biometrics.

Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey today said that the BCAS has issued an order on Wednesday removing "the mandatory stub retention by airlines".

"Stub retention" generally refers to keeping a part of the boarding pass.

The removal of "stub retention" would mean that your boarding pass would not be torn before you board an aircraft.

Choubey said the decision has come into immediate effect.

"This means the requirement for keeping the stub, which is part of the boarding pass, in physical form is not necessary...Instead, airlines can keep this is in digital form," he said on the sidelines of an event here.

The order, putting in place this mandatory requirement was issued in 1982, when there was not much digitisation, he noted.

According to Choubey, airlines were keeping a part of the boarding pass for the purpose of "passenger reconciliation" and that can now be achieved by keeping data in digital form.

At certain airports, the boarding pass -- which carries a bar code is swiped in front of a bar code reader -- and is not torn.

The Civil Aviation Ministry is working on 'digi yatra' initiative as it looks to make "boarding pass and security interactions" digital.

The plan is to roll out a digital system for airport entry and subsequent journey requirements.