By Vijay Grover
Much before the Christmas and New Year Holiday rush began, the scenes at the different Indian airports sent the travellers into a tizzy. The surge in passenger traffic, which clocked above 4 lakh travellers nearly every day in India during December 2022, heralded the bounce-back of domestic Indian aviation. For many passengers travelling after a long interval, the rush at the airports especially Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru the experience was anything but shocking. Accustomed to the routine of coming to the terminal less than two hours before departure, many travellers missed their flights as they needed more time to complete the Check-in formalities. The situation worsened at International departures and arrivals, with all hell breaking loose, as lack of immigration/emigration staff added to their woes.
Clearly, the airports and the airlines were caught unawares and unprepared by the sudden surge in numbers. Even as airport management tried to do damage control, everything seemed to collapse. As tempers flew high over the fear of missing a flight, incidents of queue jumping and jostling by passengers found space on social media. Social media became the vent for angry passengers; unforgiving visuals tweeted by angry passengers that came to light were unheard of at airports.
“We are senior citizens, and the airlines refused to help, as they are short-staffed. We tried seeking help for a wheelchair, but it took 20 minutes to get a wheelchair to the boarding gates,” Kunal Chopra, a passenger, told this correspondent at Delhi Airport. The senior citizens and those with infants were the worst impacted.
Even though the Digi-Yatra app was launched with much fanfare on 1 December 2022, a large majority of the flyers out of Bengaluru and Delhi, where the IADB team enquired about passengers, needed to be made aware of the Digi-Yatra app. The ‘Digi-Yatra’, a biometric boarding system that uses facial recognition technology at Indian airports to create a seamless, paperless, and contactless check-in and boarding experience for passengers, did not take off. The main benefit of the system, which the Government expected, was the ‘Ease Of Check-In’ to reduce congestion at airports. Hesitancy about the app usage amongst the fliers made things worse for airport authorities as a large section of fliers refused to share personal data coupled with their photo at airports.
Though the app, which was formally launched, saw hesitance as the privacy policy and terms of use for the app need to be clarified about the safety of the data shared on the app as it is an app using facial recognition technology. This means that sensitive personal data such as biometric data is being collected on Digi Yatra without any safety assurance on its use. The fear of biometric data being misused is a major concern for many passengers. While the rise in flyers at the cash registers rang for many cash-strapped airlines, airfares increased by about 50 to 70% on key trunk routes. Rikant Pittie, co-founder, EaseMyTrip, a travel booking portal, told the media, “For major sectors like Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Chennai and Delhi-Bengaluru, we had witnessed an increase of 50-60% in airfares for the period of 31st December to 1st January. Some important domestic destinations like Goa, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru are seeing a 100% jump in prices.”
The over 40% increase in domestic travel demand in the October-December 2022 quarter compared with the quarter ending September 2022 last year for tourist destinations such as Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Goa, Andaman and the North-East had layed a key role in increasing the number of flyers to around 4 lakh passengers every day. Indiver
Rastogi, President and Group Head of Global Business Travel, Thomas Cook (India) and SOTC Travel, says, “We had witnessed a 2.5x surge in demand (In 2022 vs 2021) for the Christmas/New Year period. Understandably, there is a considerable surge in airfares to popular domestic destinations.”
The question, however, was that when the bookings made well in advance were visible as data, why is it that the airlines and the airports did not boost ground staff strength to make travel smooth? It may be recalled that many airlines and ground handling companies had reduced the staff at terminals during the Covid era and also during the sluggish post covid quarters. Maybe the mounting losses in the last few years had made the airlines operate with skeletal staff as passenger loads were lesser. But the surge in passenger numbers left airlines unprepared and wanting.
The gravity of the passenger’s ire was so severe that the Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia had rushed to the Indira Gandhi International Airport on 12th December 2022 to see things for himself. He had instructed additional recruitment of manpower and the installation of additional X-Ray scanners for faster baggage screening. Overcrowded passenger hold areas were provided more space with design alterations at terminals. The issue of commotion at terminals became so big that the Government had to reply in Parliament on the steps being taken.
As Delhi saw the daily passenger load increase by nearly 15,000 recently, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) took some immediate measures. In order to curb congestion and waiting time, it was decided to install display boards at all entry gates, providing real-time data to be shared via social media. While the issue at Delhi got immediate attention, things continued to be a mess at the Bengaluru Kempegowda International Airport. Amidst the frayed tempers of passengers, a duel had erupted between the airport management and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) after an airport staffer had allegedly blamed the CISF for the delays passengers were facing. While a clarification from the KIAL management followed quickly after CISF took objection to it being delayed for passenger miseries, it didn’t help smoothen operations at KIAL Bengaluru. In addition to the congestion inside the terminal, Bengaluru’s KIAL saw massive challenges being faced even amongst those entering and exiting the airport. Traffic snarls at Arrival and Departure saw huge traffic jams, with cars taking up to 30 minutes to move in or out of parking areas.
The incidents of December 2022 at Delhi and Bengaluru cannot be written off as those caused by sudden surges due to the holiday rush but are warning bells for the planners of future airports. The Bengaluru airport is a classic example. The drive towards the airport and from the airport to the city becomes a challenge every month for passengers and raises questions on why proper planning should have been done earlier. With the rise in city traffic and the alternate connectivity options like missing metro connectivity to BMRCL and a suburban rail route not taking off, citizens in Bengaluru are looking for solutions.
Rajkumar Dugar, a civic activist, says, “There seems to be a halfhearted approach to the issue. The suburban rail route to the airport is poor and doesn’t maintain time schedules. The metro connectivity will take two more years to become operational. Nobody seems to be bothered about the passengers and the challenges they face. Why have the authorities not anticipated the growth in passenger traffic? With the T2 terminal slated to open soon, the challenges are only going to get bigger”.
As the challenges mount, many citizens are asking whether the old airport currently used by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) can be operationalised for short-haul flights. “Its funny for a 35-minute flight to Chennai or a 45-minute flight to Hyderabad, I have to report three hours early as per new guidelines by many airlines to beat the security rush,” says a regular flier Mansoor Hussain who works with a multinational company.
The Government of India (GoI) acknowledges that infrastructural challenges are far bigger than they seem on the surface. The fact that the MoCA is investing a whopping Rs 98,000 crore Indian into the development of new airports and helping ease the congestion at key airports is an indicator that things will get better. The thrust into the development of civil aviation across the country through path-breaking schemes like UDAN and regional connectivity schemes (RCS) are positive indicators.
Following the fact that over one crore Indians flew in the first 22 days of December 2022, the Civil Aviation ministry is looking at the growing appetite of India’s flyers. “India houses the third-largest aviation market, and with that, we must also strive to be the best service providers. A lot is being done today, and much more will be done to brace for the future,” said Jyotiraditya Scindia at the launch of the MOPA airport in Goa. The MOPA airport in Goa will not only help airlines to schedule flights in a better way to Goa due to restrictions on hours of operations by the Indian Air Force (IAF) but also help the IAF extend its training schedules timing for better preparedness.
Similarly, the fast pace of work at the upcoming Noida International Airport (NIA), which is expected to be ready ahead of schedule, could ease the congestion at IGIA airport, Delhi, which has become a nightmare for many passengers. Aviation experts feel that given the infrastructure challenges surrounding the existing important metro airports, the government could well waive the 150 km restriction imposed by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) proposal for developing a second airport. While Navi Mumbai airport could be a blessing for Mumbaikars in the coming years, the Karnataka government’s plan for another airport at Tumakuru could be fast-tracked and developed as an alternative to decongest KIAL. Many aviation experts eagerly await the Tamil Nadu Government’s proposal for an airport at Hosur could genuinely be a Gift for the Bengaluru IT sector, which finds reaching Bengaluru’s KIAL a real challenge.
With the present Indian government making every effort to boost the rapidly growing aviation sector, the passengers hope that the airport infrastructure will match pace with the surging demand.
