Problems galore on day one

Problems galore on day one

Staff Reporter

BIAL says it will take some time for things to be in place

BANGALORE: Long wait to retrieve baggage, confusion over conveyor belts and delay in positioning the ladders to the aircraft marked the first day of the new international airport at Devanahalli, which became functional on Saturday. As the drama unfolded in the morning, some airline operators called the new airport a “complete mess,” and struggled to deal with the passengers’ ire.

While several passengers faced difficulty checking-in on Friday night, it was the turn of arriving passengers at the Bengaluru International Airport to face problems. Though airlines that have their own ground handling facility did not have any complaints, it was those that did not have the facility that suffered. The new airport handled 341 air traffic movements, consisting of 172 arrivals and 169 departures, on the first day of operations.

Swarnalatha Vasan, a resident of Jeevan Bima Nagar, who arrived in Bangalore from Mumbai on a Go Air flight had to wait for nearly an hour to retrieve her baggage. Ms. Vasan’s flight landed at 10.10 a.m. and she received her baggage around 11.10 a.m. “The BIAL staff told us that there were some technical problems, but we had no information about the baggage or on which conveyor belt would it would come.” Further, for some time all the conveyor belts were free, but passengers had no clue when their baggage would arrive.

Passengers travelling by a Jet Airways flight from Chennai, who had endured a delay of one hour, had to wait for nearly half-an-hour in the aircraft after it landed at the new facility at 12.25 p.m.

“The step ladder was not positioned for nearly half-an-hour, and passengers could disembark only around 12.55 p.m. after the ladder was positioned,” a passenger said.

He pointed out that there were at least three aerobridges that were free, which could have been used for disembarking the passengers. “Enquiry with the airline officials revealed that the ladder could not be positioned on time as the airport authorities did not inform the airlines where the aircraft would be positioned,” the passenger said.
‘Total mess’

A leading airline spokesperson said that the airport was a “total mess” and passengers had to experience trouble due to lack of support infrastructure. “Luggage services were in a mess as well as the ground handling facilities, and almost all airlines experienced the same problems on Saturday,” he said.

“While we do so much in terms of infrastructure and the new terminal building looks good, the support infrastructure is not in place and there is a huge manpower problem. The airport was inaugurated without completely providing the facilities,” he said.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson of BIAL said: “We have just started operations, and we were expecting some problems. The BIAL expects problems to persist for at least two weeks more,” the spokesperson added.