Two more frisking booths at airport in next 15 days

PATNA: Two more frisking booths would be set up before the security hold area at Jayaprakash Narayan International Airport in a bid to solve the problems of congestion and long queues of passengers inside the terminal building.
Airport director Rajender Singh Lahauria said the officials inspected the terminal building on Monday and Tuesday and decided to set up two more frisking booths there. Passengers mostly face tough time at the terminal building due to long queues for issue of boarding passes and frisking before entering the security hold area.

Currently, Patna airport has four frisking booths, including one for women. “We are going to demolish the wall adjacent to the existing frisking booth. The two new booths for men will start functioning within 15 days,” Lahauria said and added: “The cause of the delay and congestion inside the terminal building was not because of boarding passes, but less number of frisking points. We are going to demolish the wall to create space for two more frisking booths.”

The airport director said the terminal becomes heavily congested between 12.30pm and 4.30pm. “We have to frisk every passenger to ensure foolproof security. Everyone has to be frisked and their belongings have to be scanned properly before boarding a flight,” he said.

Flyers also rue delay in boarding due to long queues for frisking. Nida Tabassum, a passenger who boarded the Patna-Delhi IndiGo flight at 4.20pm on Tuesday, said she was lucky that her flight got delayed by 20 minutes. “I thought I will miss my flight because of the long queue for frisking and boarding passes,” she said.

Jay Singh of Ashiana Nagar and a frequent flyer to Varanasi said, “I have flown many times in June and July and mostly face tough time in boarding the flight. It is high time that the airport should start expanding the terminal building.”

Airport officials attributed the increasing congestion to the “small” terminal building and the robust growth in air traffic leading to capacity constraints.

As per the Airports Authority of India (AAI) records, the city airport registered 44.2% growth in terms of passenger flow in the first quarter of the ongoing fiscal (April to June) as compared to the same period during the last fiscal. The airport handled total 10,17,269 flyers during April-June this year, whereas the corresponding figures for the same period in 2017 was 7,05,491.