Union Civil Aviation Minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia, along with other senior ministry officials, on Monday stepped in yet again to ensure congestion-free passenger movement at Delhi airport’s T3 terminal.
The intervention came after several commuters took to social media complaining of hardships because of long queues, passenger traffic rush and huge delays in checking-in at the Delhi airport. Many had tagged the minister seeking his intervention on the matter.
Scindia instructed the authorities to regulate the movement of passengers afresh at the gate where there is more crowd and to deploy “special officers” at every gate. Addition to security check in infrastructure and manpower bringing airlines on board to speed up processes are being worked on too.
“Today, we have given instructions to increase the security from 13 lines to 16 lines. By the end of this month, we will try to start three new lines. We have taken this decision together, with all the stakeholders,” the minister told media persons at the airport.
Action plan
The action plan envisaged post visits by Scindia late last week and on Monday include having traffic marshals at the departure forecourt (entry of the airport) to avoid vehicular congestion.
There are 16 entry gates at T3 (14 for passengers; 2 for crew) and two additional gates have been opened up for passengers taking the total number to 18.
To speed up security check-in procedures, an additional X-ray machine has been installed in T3 Domestic; manpower deployed in the ATRS (automatic tray retrieval system) area has been increased and number of ATRS machines installed on the ground (11 for passengers + 2 for crew and especially abled) has gone up to 16 (10 ATRS + 6 conventional x-ray machines). This will be increased further to 17 soon, and subsequently to 20.
At the immigration counter, incoming international passengers are being encouraged to complete the Immigration Paper Landing Cards while onboard.
Airlines have been asked to be notified of the crowd numbers, so that check-in points can be made congestion-free; while real-time updates on wait time will be posted on social media.
Airlines will keep their counters completely manned, especially during peak hours. “Flights during peak hours will be reduced between 5 am to 9 am; while airlines may also explore moving some flights to T1 and T2 or non-peak hours at T3. The changes are expected to reflect over the next 1-2 week period,” a senior ministry official said.