To reduce massive congestion at the airport during this festive season, the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport Ltd (TIAL) has increased security checkpoints, deployed more CISF personnel and introduced more immigration desks, as per the “Congestion at airports status update” of the ministry of civil aviation released on Friday.
The report states that TIAL has performed well when it comes to the measures taken to mitigate congestion from December 2022 to December 2023. The ministry had directed major airports to identify bottlenecks in passenger processing and augment their capacities to meet the growing passenger demand congestion at airports during this festive season. During the last winter festive season, there was heavy rush causing airport congestion resulting in increased waiting time for passengers.
As per the report TIAL has improved its position in capacity enhancement by increasing the number of entry gates, number of check-in counters, number of XBIS at security checkpoints, number of Bureau of Immigration (BoI) counters and number of CISF workforce.
TIAL has marked a growth of 50% in the number of XBIS security checkpoints, while there is a 9% increase in the deployment of CISF personnel and 29% increase in the immigration desks.
Airlines are free to charge air fares as per their operation viabilities subject to compliance to DGCA rules, MoS in the Ministry of Civil Aviation Dr V. K. Singh stated in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha. But they must also comply with DGCA guidelines in case of cancellations and delays, he said. DGCA, on its part, keeps a check on regulations compliance by scheduled domestic airlines, he shared.
As part of the steps to mitigate the congestion at airports, Digi Yatra has been launched at 13 airports across the country. As per the congestion status update report, since its launch, more than 91 lakh passengers have availed the facility of Digi Yatra to travel through the airports. However, this has not been enabled at the Thiruvananthapuram airport.“On average 13,000 passengers pass through Thiruvananthapuram airport in a day. Of this 7,000 are domestic travellers. It is perhaps for the first time that domestic passengers have surpassed international passengers at the airport. At present, the domestic terminal capacity is 1.2 million/year. This will have to be increased since the connectivity is increasing and there is a corresponding increase in the passenger flow. Hence, more facilities are being equipped in the existing infrastructure and steps are also on to expand the existing infrastructure,’’ said a TIAL official.
“Now, the daily ATM is 88 which will be increased to 100 by February next year and this will be an all-time high. Then, the existing infrastructure facility will not be sufficient to meet the demand,” he added.
