AI plan to shift domestic flights to T3 deferred

New Delhi: Domestic passengers flying Air India (AI) in and out of Delhi have just been spared post-Diwali blues. AI's plan to shift all domestic flights to IGI Airports Terminal 3 (T3) from Sunday has been deferred by at least three days. This may now happen next Thursday, and that too if the airline is able to get the required infrastructure in place at the new terminal to operate all its domestic and international flights from the new hub without driving the passengers crazy.
Jet and Kingfisher are likely to move to T3 on November 14, when the runway-tunnel link road to T3 will be ready. A top-level team of the aviation ministry spent several hours at T3 on Thursday to see how long would the unprepared airline management take to shift. Aviation minister Praful Patel, secretary M M Nambiar, DGCA chief Nasim Zaidi, took stock of the situation with AI CMD Arvind Jadhav and COO Gustav Baldauf. The review follows the massive delays in AI flights and baggage delivery in the past few days as it shifted just 11 domestic operations to T3.
This led to protests by angry passengers. Basic things like having adequate ground handling support are missing. Only now AI has appointed a company, Khambata, as an additional ground handler to supplement its own team. All these things should have been planned much in advance instead of shifting first and then putting passengers travelling in peak travel season to such inconveniences, said sources. DGCA chief Nasim Zaidi spent about seven hours at T3, overseeing the entire processes of AI for their new hub and plugging the gaps. He will review the progress made on Thursday's action plan this weekend to see if AI has managed to put its act together or whether shifting of domestic operation needs to be further deferred.
05/11/10 Times of India

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Categories: Air India Domestic Nov 2010, Air India Nov 2010, Airports Nov 2010