Managing passenger rush at airports

Shubhadeep Choudhury

WELL aware of the chaos at terminal 3 (T3) of New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in the recent past, Nitya Jacob reported three-and-a-half hours early last Wednesday for his 8 pm flight to Mumbai. Delhi-based Jacob had been bombarded with messages from Air Asia to report well in advance. He was pleasantly surprised when the security routine and the check-in were completed within two hours. The situation is becoming a tad better at India’s busiest airport.

A post-pandemic travel surge and prolonged security check-in owing to staff crunch, courtesy the lay-offs during the lockdown, have clogged other major airports, including Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, as well. The Delhi one, however, is the worst hit.

Incidents of queue jumping and jostling by passengers have also come to light, something unheard of at airports at least. Several harried passengers have taken to the social media to express their shock at the development, especially private security staff facilitating queue jumping. “Senior citizens, kids were helpless and the airlines refused to help,” a passenger commented on Twitter.

There are serpentine queues at airport entry gates, check-in and immigration counters in absence of adequate staff strength. The existing infrastructure such as X-Ray machines, trays for security check, baggage belts, etc, has fallen woefully short against the huge number of passengers.

Adding to Delhi’s woes is North’s winter, leading to the rush at the security check-in, as passengers remove coats and jackets for scanning. Additional trays are required.

Though online check-in has been made mandatory, many flyers still prefer to collect boarding passes physically, says Deepti, who mans a self-service IndiGo counter.

As Delhi saw the daily passenger load increase by nearly 10,000 recently, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) took some immediate measures. In order to curb congestion and waiting time, it was decided to install display boards at all entry gates, providing real-time data and to be shared via social media. Six personnel have been evenly distributed at each gate for security purposes, the MoCA said.

Five additional X-Ray machines have been installed at the domestic terminal of T3, taking the total number to 18. The machines are being managed by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). Additional CISF personnel have been deployed by the Ministry of Home Affairs for this purpose.

More CISF personnel have also been deployed in T3 for frisking and at the entry gates to facilitate passenger entry.

Taking note of the trouble faced by passengers, who have been flooding social media with videos of congestion and chaos at the IGI airport, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia held a meeting with all stakeholders on December 5.

He suggested that flights during peak hours from T3 should be reduced to 14 (from the existing 21), and departure of some other flights could be diverted to T2 and T1 from T3. Airport sources said that work in this direction has begun and discussions were on with airlines. Implementation would take time since tickets have already been issued by the airlines and changing the flight times and terminals is not going to be easy.

More officials, including Civil Aviation Ministry joint secretary Rubina Ali and Zulfiquar Hasan, director-general of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, also visited the airport last Saturday for taking stock.

These visits resulted in deployment of four more traffic marshals (totalling 12 now) at the departure forecourt to avoid vehicular congestion, awareness posters at entry gates for passengers to be ready with documents, and deployment of dedicated personnel at the entry gates.

Domestic passengers have been asked to come three-and-a-half hours early, while international passengers are being asked to come four hours in advance. Passengers are also being encouraged to travel only with cabin baggage, minimising the need for checking in.

Additional manpower has also been deployed in the automatic tray retrieval system (ATRS) area to help passengers further and manage congestion. Incoming international passengers are being encouraged to complete the immigration landing cards on board and staff members have been deployed on ground to facilitate those who have not done so.

In Mumbai, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) authorities have also undertaken a slew of initiatives, including the introduction of a passenger footfall monitoring mechanism, to tackle the problem of overcrowding. Post-pandemic single-day traffic at the Mumbai airport reached 1,50,988 passengers on December 10, the third-highest single-day passenger movement in the history of the airport. The CSMIA has also augmented its manpower resources with the inclusion of ‘passenger service executives’, along with ramped-up infrastructural facilities, to meet the passenger requirements. Terminal operations teams have been deployed at pre-security checks for the fast segregation of restricted articles to reduce the rejection rates at the ATRS.

The IGI airport, too, has seen huge footfall in recent years. The number of domestic passengers for the current year is not available, but the number of international passengers handled by the airport during the April-June period in 2022 has been provided. Over 32 lakh international passengers were handled by the IGIA between April 1 and June 30. The corresponding figure for Mumbai is 21.8 lakh, Chennai 10.2 lakh and Kolkata 3.8 lakh.

According to Airports Council International, the IGIA saw 3.7 crore passengers — 30.3 per cent more than 2.8 crore in 2020 when it was the 16th busiest. Of the 12 airports that handled more passengers than the Delhi airport last year, 10 are in the US and two in China.

While there has been a significant increase in the number of passengers, the absence of adequate manpower is another key factor behind the congestion, say sources. Most airlines had sacked a large number of ground staff during the lockdown. Many of these vacancies are yet to be filled again. This is one of the root causes of the problem of congestion, it is learnt. Even the number of CISF personnel deployed at the airport has not been brought to the pre-Covid level even as the passenger footfall has increased exponentially.

P Rajgopalan, a pilot and founder and CEO of Pune-based institute Aviation Training India, says the lack of trained ground staff is another area of concern. “Though it is not easy to get trained ground staff even if the airlines want to hire. Not just more manpower, but more trained manpower is needed,” he adds. Rajgopalan also hopes that the new airports at Noida and Navi Mumbai would ease the pressure.

“The holiday season in the European Union and USA is contributing to the increased passenger traffic, as more expats are travelling to India, ” Rajagopalan says.

How can the growing chaos be resolved? The Noida International Airport at Jewar, UP, could ease the pressure on Delhi. However, it is expected to be operational only by September 2024. The initial passenger capacity of the airport has been projected at 12 million passengers per annum.

India is currently the third largest domestic aviation market in the world. The Airports Authority of India and private airport companies have taken up the development of new and existing airports with a projected capital expenditure of over Rs 90,000 crore over the next five years.

The number of airlines is also increasing to cater to the existing as well as projected footfall. The existing airlines are augmenting their fleet. According to the International Air Transport Association, India will soon emerge as the third largest global air passenger market (in terms of total passengers, both domestic and international). This will place India’s aviation sector behind the US and China in terms of passengers.

The recent rush has exposed the chinks in the existing infrastructure at all major Indian airports, with reports of people missing flights despite reaching well in time, leading to scuffles among passengers. The adopted measures will only bring temporary relief. An overhaul is needed with new airports, better and additional infrastructure and more trained manpower.

Quick fix for immediate relief

• Jitender Bhargava, former executive director, Air India, says, “Passenger traffic across the country has gone up by about one lakh persons daily and the infrastructure at airports is not adequate to handle such a large volume.”
• As security check-in of passengers takes a huge amount of time, Bhargava suggests that passengers should be encouraged to deposit hand luggage as well at check-in counters, reducing the need to scramble for trays at security checks.
• “Frisking is a quick and better process,” Bhargava says. He adds that there should be no additional charge for depositing hand baggage at check-in counters even if it exceeds the weight limit of 15 kg (25 kg for Air India).
• Advanced technology is needed for faster baggage scanning, says Bhargava.