India’s largest airport, the Indira Gandhi International Airport at Delhi, witnessed major congestion and chaos last week which resulted in some passengers even missing their flights. Passengers took to social media to complain about the overcrowding, long queues, and missed flights.
On December 9, Tennis player Riya Bhatia had taken to Twitter to complain about the security check lines at terminal 3 of Delhi Airport. TV anchor and author Rocky Singh on December 11 tweeted a photo of a crowded security checkpoint at the T3 terminal at 5.30 a.m.
"Welcome to HELL," he said. "35 minutes to get into the airport - 25 minutes at a comparatively empty Vistara and now … the mother of all security lines … SECURITY !!! Abandon hope all ye who enter here."
"On December 6, 9, and 10 the airport experienced a surge in passenger numbers resulting in overcrowding, due to which operations were hit," an official working at Delhi airport told Moneycontrol.
How will overcrowding be prevented at Delhi airport?
The official from Delhi airport added that the airport has since undertaken various measures to ensure that such a situation does not recur.
“We have identified the peak hours. On Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the departure of many domestic flights coincides with international departures to Europe and the US. This leads to a massive surge in traffic at the airport,” the official said.
He added that in order to manage the surge in traffic and facilitate quick and fast movement of passengers, the airport has learnt from the chaos over the last few days, and apart from following the aviation ministry's four-point plan to decongest the airport, has also undertaken many on-ground measures.
"We have reorganized shifts of our personnel to ensure extra manpower at peak hours and have also started deploying extra personnel to help families and older citizens move through the check-in and security checks faster," the official added.
Another official said that in order to avoid passengers from getting stuck at security checks more manpower has been deployed to help passengers sort out their objects and clear security checks.
He also said that the airport is also working with airline ground staff to facilitate faster passenger check-in and is also pushing for passengers who have arrived late for domestic flights to use the DigiYatra app for faster check-ins.
"We have deployed additional manpower to guide passengers, especially at key choke points, and deployed an additional X-Ray machine. Additional manpower requirements will be addressed by all stakeholders, including the CISF and immigration authorities, to further improve the situation," a DIAL (Delhi International Airport Ltd) spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that DIAL is leveraging technology like AI-based passenger tracking systems for proactive monitoring and messaging to passengers and airport employees on the waiting time, etc.
"Passengers are being advised to check-in most of their baggage, including cabin baggage, in order to facilitate faster security checks," he said.
Government suggestions
The aviation ministry last week asked the Delhi airport to increase the total number of X-ray screening systems to 16 from 14 in order to cope with the passenger inflow.
The airport will demolish one of the lounges and add an ATRS machine and two standard X-ray machines. ATRS stands for Automatic Tray Retrieval System.
The ministry also asked the airport to convert two entry points (gates 1A and 8B) for passenger use. These are currently used by airport staff.
Further, the government is working with airlines to reduce the number of domestic departures from terminal 3 (T3) to 14 at peak hours, from 19 currently.
The officials said discussions are also going on with airlines to reduce the number of flights during peak hours at all terminals. Plans to shift some domestic flights from T3 to T2 are also being discussed.
Why is Delhi airport overcrowded?
With four lakh passengers on seven of the first nine days of the month, domestic air traffic has soared to a record high this December since the pandemic.
In December 2019, an average of 3,061 domestic flights took off per day carrying 4,18,722 passengers. Currently, with 2,790 departures every day carrying 4,06,112 passengers, the load factor is higher. Which in turn leads to higher passenger loads at the airports.
The rise in passenger numbers has been accompanied by a surge in passenger complaints. People are taking to social media to complain about long wait times at just about every step before boarding a flight, especially at Delhi and Mumbai airports. Ironically, with the maximum number of awards, Delhi’s T3 and Mumbai’s T2 are the most decorated airport terminals in the country.
The problems at Delhi’s T3 are mainly due to T1 being largely unavailable due ongoing work for its expansion, which has led to additional passengers being funnelled via T3 and T2. Recently, the airport opened an arrivals facility at T1 but until the full expansion is complete, a redistribution of flights and a solution looks distant.
The expansion project was only three-quarters complete as of the end of September. Once it is finished, the capacity of the airport will go up from 66 million passengers annually to 100 million.
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