AI passenger-unfriendly?

Inconsistencies found during a surprise check at Delhi airport

Serious irregularities were found in the passenger handling by Air India-SATS employees at Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi during a recent surprise check by the airline's vigilance department.


Representative pic

There was utter confusion in the airline's passenger handling work besides lack of floor level co-ordination at the check-in counters, as AI-SATS deployed "inexperienced and newly-recruited" staff, according to airline sources.

AI-SATS, a joint venture of Air India and Singapore Airport Terminal Services, provides ground handling services to various airlines at many major airports, including Delhi. The sources said AI-SATS employees who man the check-in counters, were regularly shifted from AI counters to those of the other customer airlines of the joint venture, thereby hampering the work of the national carrier. Apart from this, the checks found that only a few AI-SATS staff were working with their individual confidential sign-in codes, which is a pre-requisite for performing check-in formalities.

Most of them worked on one common shared sign-in code. This was highly irregular and prone to manipulations and misuse, sources said, adding that the vigilance department asked the national carrier stop such practice immediately. The checks also pointed to the fact that Air India duty managers were not being provided with proper guidelines of the service level agreement between AI and AI-SATS.

While the duty timings of AI-SATS staff was not synchronised with those of the AI, the airline officials were not being provided with the lists of employees who were being deployed by the joint venture firm. These employees were also being changed frequently, even during a single shift, the sources said.

Take-off
The sprawling glass-and-steel Terminal 3, the largest airport terminal in country and the fifth-largest in the world, was inaugurated amid much fanfare by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 3 last year.

Glass ceolong broken
Airport staffers as well as passengers at Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport had a narrow escape last Tuesday morning when a portion of the glass panel overhead fell on the immigration counters.
A Delhi International Airport Limited spokesperson, however, said that only a small portion of the glass panel had fallen. "A glass facade near the pre-immigration area at the arrival level of Terminal 3 was being cleaned, and a small portion of the glass panel broke," he said, adding there were no reports of injury or damage.