Secretary, Civil Aviation Shri Rajiv Bansal took a meeting today with Airport Operators of Bengaluru and Mumbai, which was attended by Safety & Security Regulators viz. Director Generals of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) & Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) and other senior officials, to take stock of the measures taken at Bengaluru and Mumbai Airports for decongestion during peak hours.
It had come to the notice of the Government that a few major airports are facing congestion and longer waiting time at various touch points in passenger processing due to increase in number of air travellers on account of seasonal travels. A meeting in this regard was earlier held by Union Minister for Civil Aviation Shri Jyotiraditya Scindia on 7th December, 2022, directing major airport operators to identify bottlenecks and augment capacity to meet the growing passenger demand.
In today’s meeting, it was emphasized by the Secretary, Civil Aviation that airport operators have to provide the requisite facilities commensurate with the growth in number of passengers, facilitating a hassle free travel for air passengers. The airport operators must install additional capacity and redesign their systems and processes, wherever needed to be in readiness for any peak demand scenario.
Airport Operators were advised to give daily report on the aspects including (a) Putting Sign Boards to indicate the real time basis waiting time at Entry Gates, Security lane and also sharing of the same through social media feeds, (b) whether all airlines are manning their check-in counters adequately, (c) Installation of additional x-ray machines to increase the number of security lanes, (d) Rebalancing the peak hour flight schedule with the availability of security lanes, (e) Disseminating all the relevant information to passengers.
With the continuous monitoring of the situation at major airports and augmentation of capacity, the situation has improved and is likely to get further eased in coming days.