Passengers on US flights will go to exclusive boarding gates

New Delhi: Uncle Sam will be mighty pleased with IGI Airport's new terminal T3. It will be India's first terminal to have enclosed boarding gates for non-stop US-bound flights with facility to screen both passengers and their cabin baggage just before they enter the aerobridge to board the aircraft. Only a few terminals in the world like London Heathrow and Frankfurt have made such special arrangements to accommodate US security concerns.
"This is a requirement after the 9/11 attack in New York. Currently, passengers taking non-stop flights to US have to undergo an additional layer of check before being allowed inside aircraft at the existing international terminal T2 and at Mumbai too," said a senior official. IGI T2's shape does allow any one gate to be enclosed to ensure that flow of passengers in a away that they get chanellized into the aircraft after secondary checks in a completely sanitised area.
While Air India is the only Indian airline that operates non-stop to US, a number of US carriers like Continental and American have such flights. Almost all of them leave one after the other every night so that they arrive in places like New York, Newark or Chicago early morning. "Hence, we have as many as three special boarding gates for passengers going to the US," said an official.
03/07/10 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jul 2010, Foreign Jul 2010