Security beef-up toll on fliers

Kolkata: The security strengthening at the city airport following the Mumbai terror attacks is causing passenger bottlenecks in the domestic terminal, often leading to delayed departure of flights.
An airport official blamed the sole entry to the terminal for the long queues at the gate and security check-in counters.
“Long queues are unavoidable as the fliers are being compulsorily frisked in the wake of the attacks. There has to be at least one more entry to reduce the bottleneck,” the official said.
The international terminal has remained largely unaffected because of lower footfall than in the domestic one.
Delhi and Mumbai airports have several entry points, which help ease congestion. In Calcutta, despite a lot of revamp work, the number of entry points has not been increased.
The airport authorities could not hold out any immediate hope. “The situation will improve after the modernisation project is over. The new integrated terminal will have multiple entry points,” said an official.
On Sunday afternoon, passengers had to wait for long before they could enter the domestic terminal. “I would have missed the 5pm flight had it not been delayed by 40 minutes,” said a passenger of Air India’s Calcutta-Delhi flight.
The delay may have been caused by operational reasons, but airport sources pointed out that several peak-hour flights are taking off 15-20 minutes late because of the passenger bottlenecks.
15/12/08 The Telegraph

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Categories: Airports Dec 2008