KOLKATA: The continued embargo on flights from six high-traffic cities four days-a-week has left passengers battling longer queues on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
With 40% more people travelling through the airport on these three days when there are no curbs on travel, security personnel, airlines officials and airport staff are struggling to cope with the additional pressure.
On Wednesday, the long queue outside the terminal and at security check area left passengers harried and anxious with many managing to complete formalities in the nick time to catch flights.
“I got through barely 10 minutes before boarding was closed despite arriving at the airport two-and-a-half hours before the flight’s scheduled departure. It took inordinately long to gain access to the terminal. In the queue, there was no concept of social distancing norms. Inside, there was another long queue for security check,” recounted corporate executive R Pandey.
CISF officers said the problem was owing to the sudden surge in passenger count on days when flights are allowed to operate between Kolkata and six cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune and Nagpur. On Monday, nearly 40,000 passengers travelled through the airport. The next day, it was down to around 25,000. On Wednesday, it was back to 40,000-plus.
“We are deploying more manpower at gates to ensure faster checks. But there are procedures that need to be carried out by various agencies. The average time per passenger has gone up from 15 seconds to nearly a minute. Similarly, time has increased at security check due to social distancing and other Covid norms,” an officer said.
An airline official said the problem would persist till the embargo is lifted and flyers are equally distributed over seven days. “Right now, we have an unusual situation in which many passengers who would have travelled on days when there is an embargo are forced to travel on the three days when the curbs aren’t there. This is creating a lop-sided pressure on manpwer and infrastructure,” the official said.
The problem is accentuated by movement of labour traffic. “When a group of 30-40 passengers arrive, we usually ask them to split and queue up in different gates. But labourers, most of them first-time flyers, don’t agree, perhaps due to lack of familiarity with the surroundings and procedures. All of them queue up in one gate, making it inordinately long,” said airport director Kaushik Bhattacharjee. Labour traffic comprise 60% of departing passengers at the airport now.