GMR-led Hyderabad International Airport has achieved the Airport Council International’s (ACI) Airport Health Accreditation (AHA).
The accreditation is the outcome of the rigorous assessment of Hyderabad International Airport on the alignment of its health measures with the ACI Aviation Business Restart and Recovery guidelines and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) Council Aviation Recovery Task Force recommendations along with industry best practices. Hyderabad is among the first airports in Asia Pacific region to have received this coveted accreditation.
The ACI assessment covered the health and safety measures undertaken by GMR Hyderabad International Airport for passengers and staff in all the terminal areas including departures, arrivals and transfers, transportation services, food and beverage services, escalators and elevators, lounges, facilities, baggage claim area etc. The assessment also captured the initiatives that airport took for safety and well-being of employees and stakeholders, an official spokesman informed on Sunday.
The airport is steadily seeing an increase in passenger traffic with an average of over 16,000 domestic passengers daily and over 170 domestic air traffic movements daily in August. It has regained its 50 domestic destination out of 55 pre-COVID destinations. Top five destinations in terms of passenger footfall include Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai.
“ACI Airport Health Accreditation emboldens our commitment and consistent drive towards the safety of passengers and entire airport community. This has been a collaborative effort,” said GHIAL CEO Pradeep Panicker. Director General of ACI World Luis Felipe de Oliveira, in a message, congratulated RGIA and pointed out that public confidence in air travel will be crucial as our industry prepares to sustain continuing operations.
RGIA airport’s key initiatives are contactless self-check-in kiosks, contact-less entry, hygiene stations equipped with contact-less sanitiser dispensers, UV sanitisation tunnel for automatic tray retrieval, digital payments, touch-less elevator, cab sanitisation, etc. AHA programme was launched in July to assess the new health measures and procedures adopted by airports as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the press release said.