11-25-2005, 03:10 AM
<b>Flying into a jam</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Delhi airport was never equipped to handle the kind of pressure it has come under lately. Around 21 flights are landing or taking off every hour â one every three minutes. On Wednesday, 530 flights operated out of the airport â a new record.
If that doesn't sound congestion to you, you must be a traffic policeman.
That is many times more than what the airport was designed to handle. To a passenger stuck in air for 45 minutes, this will sound criminal. And it is. This government, for instance, doesn't want to take the blame for it.
<b>A source in the Civil Aviation Ministry said, âThe free distribution of flight licences started in the NDA regime and if we stop it, weâll be accused of doing so at the behest of those already in play.â</b> [Blame previous government what the hell he is doing to improve situation]
<b>So the policy clearly is this: let passengers suffer; it's only a matter of time before the airport gets the overdue infrastructure upgrade </b>(the process is under way). Till then, the passengers be damned.
<b>A senior Airports Authority of India official alleges that for the past eight years or so they were assiduously prevented from upgrading infrastructure </b>â unless it had a bearing on security (this was allowed post-haste).
The lack of enough bays makes it worse. <b>The international airport has 17 bays, of which only nine have aerobridges</b>. At the domestic terminal, there are 33 bays while the number of flights is twice as many during peak hours. New bays are still under construction and will take time to be ready.
Delay in landing is followed by delay in immigration (for international flights) and baggage collection. After 29/10, there are now three baggage checking points instead of two. A couple of days back, passengers of the Air-India flight from Dubai waited for 90 minutes before they could get their baggage
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If that doesn't sound congestion to you, you must be a traffic policeman.
That is many times more than what the airport was designed to handle. To a passenger stuck in air for 45 minutes, this will sound criminal. And it is. This government, for instance, doesn't want to take the blame for it.
<b>A source in the Civil Aviation Ministry said, âThe free distribution of flight licences started in the NDA regime and if we stop it, weâll be accused of doing so at the behest of those already in play.â</b> [Blame previous government what the hell he is doing to improve situation]
<b>So the policy clearly is this: let passengers suffer; it's only a matter of time before the airport gets the overdue infrastructure upgrade </b>(the process is under way). Till then, the passengers be damned.
<b>A senior Airports Authority of India official alleges that for the past eight years or so they were assiduously prevented from upgrading infrastructure </b>â unless it had a bearing on security (this was allowed post-haste).
The lack of enough bays makes it worse. <b>The international airport has 17 bays, of which only nine have aerobridges</b>. At the domestic terminal, there are 33 bays while the number of flights is twice as many during peak hours. New bays are still under construction and will take time to be ready.
Delay in landing is followed by delay in immigration (for international flights) and baggage collection. After 29/10, there are now three baggage checking points instead of two. A couple of days back, passengers of the Air-India flight from Dubai waited for 90 minutes before they could get their baggage
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