Puja rush delays flights

Calcutta: The weather was fine and the gadgets were functioning properly but about 20 flights were delayed by 15 minutes on an average on Sunday morning as the airport infrastructure could not cope with the festive rush of passengers.
The number of fliers in the domestic terminal forced the airport authorities to stop entry of visitors into the building for around half an hour.
“Sunday’s passenger rush was more than what was seen in the last few festive seasons. Most flights went full,” said an airport official. There were long queues at the entrance to the departure terminal, baggage X-ray counters, passenger entry point, airline check-in counters and security check counters.
“The number of check-in counters and X-ray machines have been increased. But the rush caused the delay,” added the official.
“Most of the passengers had come to Calcutta for Durga puja and are returning to their cities. The rush will continue for the next couple of days,” said Anil Punjabi, the chairman (east) of the Travel Agents Federation of India.
The space inside the domestic terminal has increased since last year but still proved inadequate for passengers and those seeing them off on Sunday morning.
13/10/08 The Telegraph

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Categories: Airports Oct 2008