Tired of being seen as the "poor parents" of glitzy PPP airports at metros like Delhi and Mumbai, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has decided to improve the passenger experience at its airports which will see check-in time drop significantly for them.
The state-run airport operator has started a pilot project at Kolkata's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport where check-in counters are being 'redistributed' to ensure their "dynamic utilisation", AAI chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra told TOI. The check-in counters will not be painted with logos or signs of any particular airline but they will have electronic signboards on top.
Depending on how many flights an airline is operating at a given time, it will be given counters accordingly where the airline's name and flight number will be displayed. The idea: Not to have a mismatch between number of flights an airline is operating and the counters it has to avoid long queues.
"Why should passengers be required to report several hours before flight time? Sometimes even domestic flyers get messages that they should report three to four hours before flight time. We are going to address this issue soon at airports across India," Mohapatra said.
So how will that happen? "There are airports where some airlines have historically had large number of counters but over time other carriers have got higher market share than them (leading to a demand-supply mismatch at some airports with few counters for more passengers and more counters for a handful). The counters are being redistributed so that as airport operator we give airlines counters according to their traffic. And then they man those properly. This will cut down check-in time. The pilot project has begun in Kolkata," he said.
To Read the News in Full 16/12/16 Saurabh Sinha/The Times Of India
The state-run airport operator has started a pilot project at Kolkata's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport where check-in counters are being 'redistributed' to ensure their "dynamic utilisation", AAI chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra told TOI. The check-in counters will not be painted with logos or signs of any particular airline but they will have electronic signboards on top.
Depending on how many flights an airline is operating at a given time, it will be given counters accordingly where the airline's name and flight number will be displayed. The idea: Not to have a mismatch between number of flights an airline is operating and the counters it has to avoid long queues.
"Why should passengers be required to report several hours before flight time? Sometimes even domestic flyers get messages that they should report three to four hours before flight time. We are going to address this issue soon at airports across India," Mohapatra said.
So how will that happen? "There are airports where some airlines have historically had large number of counters but over time other carriers have got higher market share than them (leading to a demand-supply mismatch at some airports with few counters for more passengers and more counters for a handful). The counters are being redistributed so that as airport operator we give airlines counters according to their traffic. And then they man those properly. This will cut down check-in time. The pilot project has begun in Kolkata," he said.
To Read the News in Full 16/12/16 Saurabh Sinha/The Times Of India
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