Flight info boards go blank at Kolkata airport

Kolkata: The twin terminals at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport plunged into sheer chaos on Monday afternoon when a severe manpower crunch led to a blackout in the vital flight information display system for over a couple of hours.
From shortly after 3pm till nearly 6pm, the flight information display boards and LCD monitors installed to inform the status of arriving and departing flights remained blank as there was no one in the studio department to feed the relevant information into the master computer of the display system. Though the problem had been brewing since late Saturday evening, lack of contingency measures on time precipitated the crisis on Monday afternoon.
While the all-women department has 13 employees against a sanctioned strength of 15, there were enough hints of trouble in the weekend when the staff strength was reduced to a bare six. While three were on annual leave, four others went on sick leave. Of them, one had an accident and two were suffering from hepatitis.
Of the remaining six, two reported ill on Monday morning, triggering the crisis. The other four having worked on the Sunday night and Monday day shift left for home, leaving the studio unattended and plunging the airport into chaos.
28/12/10 Times of India

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Airports Dec 2010