Delhi airport chaos: Real-time updates on waiting time, crowd managers part of govt measures

Airport authorities will have to post real-time updates on waiting times for flights on their social media handles to avoid snarls, according to the Civil Aviation Ministry’s four-point plan to deal with long queues and crowds at airports. As per this plan, airports will also have crowd managers and ushers to guide the crowd and the airlines will be notified of the crowd in advance to avoid congestion during check-in. 

Besides this, the ministry has also decided to reduce the number of flight departures to 33 between 5:00 am to 9:00 am and 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm– 14 departures from T3, 11 from T2, and eight from T1. The possibility of moving some flights to Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 or to Terminal 3 during non-peak hours is also being looked at. 

Centre is also mulling providing passengers with landing cards on boards and filling them prior to arrival, assessing X-ray capacity for baggage, ramping up security manpower capacity, and longer-term technology upgrades. 

Additional ATRS machines for baggage checking will be deployed for security checks at the T3 domestic terminal. Thirteen ATRS machines have been installed on the ground – 11 for passengers and 2 for crew and the specially-abled. This number has gone up to 16– 10 ATRS and 6 conventional X-ray machines in the last few days. This number is likely to go up to 20 in the coming days, as per an official. A Command Centre will also monitor crowding at the gates in real-time besides these measures. 

The development comes after Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia visited the Delhi airport after passengers' complaints regarding chaos and heavy rush at the airport’s Terminal 3 surfaced on social media. Scindia told the news agency ANI, “Today we’ve increased the number of entry gates from 14 to 16. There was a meeting with officials inside the airport where we’ve decided that a signboard should be placed at every entry gate displaying the wait time before entry.”

Scindia added, “Last week I conducted a meeting where all the stakeholders were present. The aviation industry was suffering massively due to COVID restrictions. Because of the recovery from this period, there is a lot of congestion at the airports.”

Also read: Delhi airport rush: Flights at T3 to be reduced in morning; some may move to other terminals

Also read: Chaos at Delhi airport! Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia makes surprise visit to take stock