In the past week many passengers travelling through Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport have shared photos of long queues at every step, and complained that it took them hours to get through to the boarding lounge. While some were left exhausted by the chaos, some others missed their flight, despite reaching the airport well ahead of time. As the issue of congestion at the airport made headlines, aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia visited the airport to take stock of the situation.
Air travel is back to pre-Covid levels with around four lakh passengers traveling across India every day. However, manpower has not been enhanced proportionately. According to reports, the CISF staff strength in Delhi has been the same since 2017 and could be one of the reasons leading to congestion.
The commotion at airports, especially at Delhi, is so bad that IndiGo airlines on December 13 issued an advisory asking passengers to reach the airport at least 3.5 hours ahead even for domestic departures. The airlines also advised passengers to carry only one piece of hand baggage weighing 7 kg for a smooth security check.
What have travellers experienced?
Travelers BOOM spoke to said the delay was because the airport authorities had "limited machinery and manpower, causing troubles to passengers."
Speaking to BOOM, Mohammad Saleem Shah, a passenger, said that on December 11, his flight was scheduled at 1:50 PM from Delhi airport Terminal 2 to Srinagar. Despite reaching the airport three hours before departure, he almost missed the flight.
"Normally I go to the airport one or sometimes one and a half hours before but in the morning, I received a message from my travel agent to reach the airport 3 hours earlier because the checking-in process was taking time," he told BOOM.
Shah added that when he reached the airport, he spotted a sea of people waiting in long queues for boarding and security check ins. "It took me almost 2 hours to handover my luggage at the boarding counter despite having done my web checking-in before. The security check-in line was a tiring process. I need to make requests to other passengers to allow me to catch my flight," Shah said.
Other passengers shared similar experiences with BOOM saying mismanagement by airport staff was adding to passenger's woes.
"Security and check in process needs to be improved with staff training and outcome. Entry into airports should also be streamlined. Bottlenecks everywhere due to lack of responsibility and care by staff," said Anil Gupta who was traveling from Delhi to Mumbai on December 12.
Lack of infrastructure, manpower
The Delhi airport has always been a busy one, with infrastructure barely keeping up with the passenger footfall. This holiday season is the first one in two years that has seen no Covid restrictions. According to Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), Delhi airport's terminal 3 manages over 500 domestic and 250 international flights with a daily passenger load of between 1.9-1.95 lakh. This huge flow of passengers at the terminal is making it the busiest point of the airport. Following the commotion, DIAL has reduced the number of flights from 22 flights per hour (pre-Covid) to 19 flights per hour (November 2022).
Paramprit Singh Bakshi, vice president of CAPA India, an aviation consultancy firm, told BOOM, "This time we have caught up with the demand coming strongly and every day there is an increase in passengers particularly in December. The airport management after COVID may have been a little slack in adapting to the strong demand revival that we are seeing."
The expert pointed out that the crisis likely got more attention as it was highlighted more seriously than before because of people's outcry on social media. He added that there had been no improvement in infrastructure or manpower( CISF staff and security staff) at airports for years.
Bakshi added that in the post-Covid world, congestion in airports had been seen across the globe, especially earlier this year in Europe. He said, "In Europe, there are situations like pilots' strikes, cabin crew strikes, and a shortage of ground staff, and this has impacted the flow of operations. This is the new reality post-COVID we are experiencing, and it cannot be fixed overnight."
Airlines and airports cut back on staff during the pandemic and are now having trouble bringing people back on board.
"There is a very serious capacity shortage both domestically and internationally. The demand is very strong, and the airlines are taking all possible measures to add capacity. To meet the capacity, they (airlines) are bound to face challenges with respect to labour or related issues because we have significant supply chain issues and now non-supply chain issues are also emerging," Bakshi said.
Hold ups in luggage drops and security checks
E-printing boarding cards and dropping of checked in baggages also adds to the delays. If a passenger does not know how to use electronic check-in kiosks or if one of the kiosks does not work, it adds to the queue at the counters where luggage is checked in.
Now, boarding cards are also issued electronically. Sometimes for a passenger to find it on their phone and then scan it on the machine takes up time.
Another massive hurdle for passengers is the security check in. In Delhi each passenger is required to put their bags, electronic devices, shoes and coats in different trays. This means each passenger requires multiple trays. A lot of time, the required number of trays are not available, making each passenger wait.
Sumit Pal, a passenger who was traveling from Delhi to Goa on December 12 told BOOM that the security check-in process takes time and there is not enough space for a passenger while dropping and picking up the belongings. "People find it difficult to arrange the gadgets in the tray and then the limited scanners are creating jams," Pal said.
What has the government said?
Scindia, during his visit, said that he had instructed the authorities to regulate the movement of passengers, manage the footfall at the gate where there is more crowd, and deploy "special officers" at every gate. He has also instructed to increase the security from 13 lines to 16 lines. "By the end of this month, we will try to start three new lines," he added.
The other measures, which were placed to reduce the congestion include real-time updates on waiting time on social media, an increase in the number of entry gates, more manpower at immigration counters and additional machines for baggage check, came after Scindia inspected the arrangements at Delhi airport.