Aviation Minister says, Passengers’ seamless travel experience is responsibility of airport

According to Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, the issue of lengthy lines at various airports is being addressed, and traffic has significantly decreased. In an exclusive interview with India Today TV, Scindia stated that it is the duty of an airport to give travellers a smooth and simple travel experience.

Jyotiraditya Scindia highlighted the instructions given to airports by the Civil Aviation Ministry to reduce airport congestion. ‘We needed to have crowd management in place at the entrance gates. That has been implemented. The second command was to install digital boards above all gates to tell passengers exactly what the queue time is. This has also been set up,’ he said.

Following complaints from thousands of travellers about lengthy wait times at airports, particularly at Delhi International Airport’s Terminal 3 (T3), the aviation minister made his remarks.

According to Jyotiraditya Scindia, steps have already been taken to address congestion at airport entry points, and the issue of overcrowding has largely been solved.

‘Before Covid, we had roughly about 4.1 lakh air travellers on a daily basis. This week we have touched a new high of 4.28 lakh passengers,’ Jyotiraditya Scindia said.

‘On one hand, we have travellers who are desirious and anxious to travel and on the other hand, we have airlines who are equally desirious and anxious to provide their services after being on the ground for a long period due to Covid-19 incuded lockdown,’ the minster added.

The value chain of the airports now sits between supply and demand for services, and according to Scindia, it is the responsibility of an airport to provide seamless and effective throughput to enable supply to catch up with demand. He declared, ‘Right here is where the clogging took place.’

We conducted an operations exercise while seated alongside airport officials, starting from the moment a customer enters airport property until the moment he boards the aircraft, said Scindia.

‘We identified where exactly the choke-points were and then established a process to remove those roadblocks to provide that smooth flow,’ he said.

Scindia added that the nation’s airports themselves are not equipped to manage such a large capacity of travellers at once.