New Delhi: Over the past weekend, visuals of crowded terminals and heavy passenger traffic from across airports in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru flooded social media as travellers — domestic and international — stood in long queues for hours, waiting to check-in and get through immigration and security. Some even missed their flights in the process.
While such scenes have become common at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport over the past month, Bengaluru and Mumbai, too, saw long lines and over-crowding, coupled with few open counters and fewer personnel deployed to deal with the surge in holiday traffic.
Travel blogger and founder of adventure travel company Helmet Stories, Vir Nakai had Saturday tweeted a photo of a crowded Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. “Lines for days at 5:30 am…quite a few flared tempers. This is new,” he wrote.
While Delhi airport authorities are reporting that additional personnel and infrastructure has been deployed, these additions have had very little effect on controlling passenger traffic and experience — issues IGI Airport has now been dealing with for over a month. Amid this, Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia made a surprise visit to the Delhi IGI Airport Monday — his second since the first one earlier last week — to take stock of the situation.
Speaking to ThePrint, Jungbir Singh, Director of Celebi Airport Services India which provides ground handling services at IGI, said, “The surge in traffic is most during early morning and evening hours, which is when additional personnel are most required. However, these additional deployments have extra costs which also need to be accounted for in existing budgets.”
“Delhi airport has increased its manpower by 16-18 per cent. We have opened more counters and regularly checked and updated our systems. This congestion is just a temporary situation due to the post Covid-19 travel surge and things will soon run smoothly again,” he added.
Regarding the deployment of additional systems such as X-ray machines based on suggestions by the Aviation ministry, sources working in airport agencies told ThePrint, “Such additional infrastructural requirements often need to be approved by the government as well as DIAL (Delhi International Airport Limited) which takes time. Moreover, security agencies need to work in tandem with such additions to ensure smooth functioning of the airport and fix bottlenecks such as check-in, immigration and frisking, which take hours at a time.”
Speaking to media persons earlier, Scindia had said he had held several meetings with the ministry, major airports and other officials. “We have asked them to take necessary steps to decongest the areas. ‘Bunching’ of flights during peak hours often leads to congestion. At the entry point, we are trying to get more personnel deployed. Lastly, at the security checkpoint, we gave two suggestions to airports. We should increase the capacity of trolleys (hand baggage) and increase the number of personnel.”
Scindia Wednesday had held a meeting with all aviation stakeholders including Central Industries Security Force (CISF), immigration and airport authorities regarding the surge in travelers causing congestion in airports during peak hours. Post the meeting, a four-point action plan was announced by the Ministry of civil aviation and DIAL, which included steps like increasing X-ray screening systems from 14 to 16, increasing passenger entry points, and debunching flights to reduce peak hour congestion.
However, hashtags #T3 and #Terminal3 have been trending on Twitter since last night with numerous social media users sharing images of busy airports and tagging the Union aviation minister as well as the Aviation ministry. Some passengers also said there was a “real stampede risk”.
At the T3 arrival gate, family members anxiously waited for passengers to exit. Among them was Anna Boluda, who was waiting for her 72-year-old mother, traveling from Doha, Qatar, to arrive.
“I have been coming to Delhi airport for almost nine years and the situation has remained the same,” Boluda said to ThePrint. “It takes roughly 1-2 hours to go through immigration as there are very few people deployed and hardly one or two counters (are open) to process so many passengers. In such circumstances, it becomes very difficult for senior citizens, like my mother, to travel. There is an urgent need to improve and update these systems.”
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Lack of personnel, traffic management
T3 at IGI Airport reportedly handles over 500 domestic and 250 international flights every day, along with a daily passenger load of 1.9-1.95 lakh, making it the busiest part of Delhi airport. Last month, it was reported that the number of flights at T3 had been reduced from 22 per hour (pre-Covid) to 19 per hour to help decongest the terminal.
Pragati Kaushal, a ground control worker for DIAL, told ThePrint, “We have increased the number of gates. Certain staff entry points were also converted into passenger gates. More people have also been deployed at the terminal and we are constantly working on dividing travellers to prevent overcrowding at one gate.”
Over the weekend, ground control workers at the airport were seen guiding the dispersing passengers constantly to multiple entry gates at the departure section of T3 to keep lines moving.
Yet, many passengers continue to complain about lack of personnel at the airport terminal.
Shruti Singhal, a student who arrived from Germany Monday told ThePrint, “Queues at immigration are hours-long due to lack of manpower. While multiple counters were open, there weren’t enough people manning these counters. Delays in immigration led to chaos in finding our luggage as it had arrived earlier and was moved from the designated belt by the time my processing was done.”
Some passengers also took to social media to share their experience with the central government’s latest development — the DigiYatra app — launched on 1 December. Jet Airways CEO Sanjiv Kapoor tried the new facial recognition technology allowing for paperless entry into airports and mentioned the convenience of using the app, including separate queues for users and more.
However, many who used the app questioned the long queues in the airport despite the launch of the programme mere days ago.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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