30 minutes — that is all it took from the entry gate of Delhi International Airport’s Terminal 3 to clearing the security gates on Friday afternoon for an international flight.
The horrors since the past week, when pictures and videos of long queues at the entry gates, check-in counters, and the security clearance section, have hassled passengers and raised questions on the efficiency of the national capital’s biggest airport. Airlines had to ask passengers to come as early as four hours before departure for an international flight and 3.5 hours for a domestic flight earlier this week.
However, things seem to have eased out at the airport, with civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia doing surprise inspections and a host of measures coming into place. Though I took an international flight on Friday at a rather non-peak afternoon hour, officials at the airport said the situation has improved in the peak early morning and late night hours as well. The Christmas-New Year week will, however, be the real test, they said.
At airport 4 hours early
Heeding the airline’s advice, I was at Terminal 3 around 1.30 pm, four hours ahead of my scheduled international flight. The driveway at T3 for vehicles seems better manned now with it taking not much time to get off at your desired gate. At the gates, the boards with waiting time for entry are a big help and so is the written advice to keep one’s own ticket and ID card ready — though I could see no more than a dozen people in the queue. It took just about five minutes in the queue to get inside the airport — much quicker than I have earlier.
Check-in
The IndiGo check-in arrangement was quite good with multiple personnel to guide you to the vacant check-in counter after a queue not lasting more than five people. “Coming early helps,” one of the staff members explained, saying a big issue is passengers arriving just in the nick of time for their flight and then insisting to break the queue in order to not be disallowed boarding. The check-in takes just about ten minutes.
The bottleneck, not today
It is the immigration and the security check which has been seen as a major bottleneck over the last 10 days, with passengers complaining of long queues here that made them stand for over an hour here. This was also the situation for domestic flights. However, on Friday afternoon, I saw that adequate manning of the immigration counters, and extra X-ray machines at security counters have really helped. It took about 10 minutes in the immigration queue and then just 5 minutes at the security check counter.
“The rush for the day is still to start…It happens at about 10 pm. But things are much better than some days back. Passengers are coming early in time, there are fewer arguments and more manpower and equipment has also helped. Allowing only one hand baggage inside the flight has speeded up security clearance,” a senior official here told News18, not wishing to be identified.
Some passengers can in fact be seen talking to immigration officials and CISF officials about the horrific stories they have heard about the rush and how they came in very early to avoid it.
In the end, it was 2pm and it took just about 30 minutes to cross the security counters from the main airport entry gate. Afternoons seem a good time for international flights from T3.
The queue to get into the airport lounge, in fact, took longer than any of the other queues at entry, check-in, or security.
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