Delhi airport chaos: Minister Scindia visits terminal 3 amid complaints of overcrowding

With the shackles of Covid now broken, travellers are flocking to airports in droves en route to holiday destinations.

With December ushering in the year-end holiday season, Delhi's Terminal 3 is seeing unprecedented footfall, with long queues at check-in and security.

For the past few days, passengers have been complaining about the delays and issues at T3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.

With the rising overcrowding complaints from passengers, Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia visited Delhi airport on Monday.

Scindia, along with senior ministry officials, visited Terminal 3 of the airport amid complaints from passengers about long queues and waiting hours in recent days.

Officials said the minister inspected in the morning the arrangements made to address the congestion, and key directions were issued with specific timelines.

The measures will be implemented soon, and the changes are expected to take effect in the next six to seven days, the officials said.

Passengers have been complaining of waiting long hours even to enter the airport. 

According to the officials, limited staff and counters at the terminals made it difficult to manage the surge of passengers.

Considering the issue, some airlines have requested the passengers to reach the airport at least three-and-a-half hours before their flight's scheduled departure.

The Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) and Aviation Ministry had laid down a four-point action plan to handle the situation.

The action plan measures include deploying additional manpower, X-Ray machines, CISF and Immigration personnel to improve the ground situation.

The number of X-ray screening systems was increased to 16 from 14. 

Officials told PTI that discussions are also going on with airlines to reduce the number of flights during peak hours at the three terminals.

The effort is to have 14 flights at T3, 11 in T2, and 8 in T1 during the peak hours.

Also, reserve lounge would be demolished and two entry points at Gate 1A and Gate 8B at T3 would be converted to passenger usage.

DIAL is also using an AI-based passenger tracking system for proactive monitoring and messaging to passengers and airport employees. The implementation of DigiYatra is also used to help reduce the waiting time.

According to reports, DIAL spokesperson said that new infrastructure and facilities are being created under the phase 3A expansion plan such as the opening of new Terminal 1 (T1) arrivals and the phased opening of integrated T1.

T3 manages over 500 domestic and 250 international flights and daily passenger load of 1.9-1.95 lakh, making it the busiest point of the airport.