Calcutta: Turn up hours in advance to catch a domestic flight during Puja 2011 as the festive rush is set to make the terminal (even) more chaotic.
A plan to decongest the domestic terminal is yet to take off as two private airlines have been refusing for over two months to shift part of their operations to a makeshift terminal in order to curb costs.
The authorities had planned to relocate ATR (small aircraft) operations to the makeshift or secondary terminal, set up in a discarded arrival lounge and opened on July 25, in an attempt to decongest the domestic terminal.
But of the three airlines that operate ATRs from Calcutta, only Air India has shifted to the new terminal. Jet Airways and Kingfisher are still using the old one. Air India operates four and the two private airlines around 20 ATR flights daily on an average.
Thanks to the refusal of the two airlines to shift, the domestic terminal is as congested and chaotic as it was, with fliers suffering long queues, shortage of trolleys and unclean toilets.
Metro has repeatedly highlighted the plight of the passengers, who have to stand at least 30 minutes in a queue at the security check-in counter. The queues at the check-in and security-check counters often merge, triggering confusion and forcing airlines to delay departures.
01/10/11 Sanjay Mandal/The Telegraph
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
0 comments:
Post a Comment