- Chennai to Kolkata by flight: Two hours.
- Aerobridge to car at the Kolkata airport: One-and-a-half hours.
A passenger who arrived at the city airport on the night of January 7 had to suffer an exceptionally long wait, first for the luggage and then for the car.
There are many who have gone through such an experience.
The Telegraph spoke to the passenger, the group COO of a private company, and also to officials at the airport to find out the cause of the delays.
The south Kolkata resident was returning home from Chennai with his wife and elderly mother.
The IndiGo flight had taken off from Chennai at 5.50pm and landed in Kolkata at 7.50pm.
“Luckily, we got off the plane through an aerobridge. Nowadays this happens rarely as planes are often parked in remote parking bays and we are made to board the airline’s bus to reach the terminal,” said the passenger, who travels frequently for work.
They climbed down the escalator to the ground floor of the arrival level to collect their luggage.
“The conveyor belt started rolling soon but not a single piece of luggage was on it. It seemed to be rolling without a purpose,” he said.
After half an hour, the first pieces of luggage started appearing on the belt.
“Another 15 minutes passed before our luggage came,” said the passenger.
“I travel frequently to Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Usually, I have to wait for 15 to 20 minutes at the airports there to collect my registered luggage. Why is there so much delay at the Kolkata airport, which handles far fewer flights than the airports in those cities?” he said.
The next problem was getting into the car.
“I called my driver, who had parked the car in the parking lot. It took him more than half an hour to come in front of gate 3A and 3B of the arrival area, where we were waiting,” the flier said.
The driver told him there was only one kiosk open to pay the parking fee and there was a long queue of cars.
Only to worsen the situation, a series of VIP vehicles was parked on the kerbside, forcing private vehicles to wait in the second and third lanes in front of the terminal building for fliers to board.
“A Union minister had come and so there was a convoy of beacon-fitted cars standing in front of the terminal. There were long queues of other vehicles and no policeman could be seen to manage the chaos,” he said.
His car came after it had to wait in a second queue, which had formed in front of the terminal. It was 9.20pm, one-and-a-half hours after the flight from Chennai had landed, when the executive and his wife and mother boarded the car.
“At the Bangalore airport, it takes a maximum of 30 minutes after getting off the aircraft to board the car,” he said.
Officialspeak
Officials at the airport said a shortage of personnel and “lack of work culture” among luggage handlers are the most important reasons for the delay.
“The luggage is loaded on trolleys in a mechanised process. However, after the trolleys reach the terminal building, each piece of luggage is manually loaded on the conveyor belt at the basement level,” said an airport official.
“When several flights land back to back, baggage delivery takes time as the already stretched manpower gets stretched further. Lack of work culture is also to
blame.”
Airport sources said though the number of aircraft and passengers has increased, the staff strength at the airport has remained the same.
Officials of airlines, however, said they had enough personnel to handle baggage.
A main reason for the delay when an aircraft is parked in a remote bay is the distance tractor trolleys carrying the luggage have to cover.
Safety rules at the airport limit the speed of the tractor trolleys at 15kmph. After the luggage is loaded on a trolley, it often has to cover around 3km to reach the terminal building, said an official.
On reaching the terminal, the trolley goes down two floors to the basement through a ramp. Airline loaders place the luggage on belts that take them up two floors through a shaft to the ground floor of the arrival lounge.
A few years earlier, Kolkata had 55 parking bays for aircraft, 18 with aerobridges and 37 remote. Now, there are 73 bays, of which 55 are remote. The number of aerobridges has remained 18, forcing more flights to park away from the terminal.