Home Secretary to chair meeting on Delhi Airport rush

New Delhi: Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla will chair a high-level meeting on airport rush here in the national capital on Thursday morning.

The meeting is likely to be held after 11 am in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Senior officers in the MHA, officials in the Minister of Civil Aviation and others concerned with the matter, including those in Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), will attend the meeting.

The meeting is being held considering the complaints on social media by irate passengers about missed flights and serpentine pre-boarding lines at India's busiest airport in Delhi.

The pictures posted on Twitter showed overcrowding at Delhi International Airport. There were reports of passengers grumbling about long waits for security checks and mismanagement by the airport staff.

The government has even stepped in to help ease the congestion, with India's Civil Aviation Ministry earlier saying in a statement that it's working with airlines to reduce flight departures to 14 during peak hours. It did not disclose data for normal traffic.

Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia also visited one of the terminals earlier this week and said that he will look into concerns around the management of security checks at Delhi's T3 Indira Gandhi (IGI) airport in response to a complaint by a passenger on social media. The minister has ordered airport officials to resolve the issues on priority.

Additionally, the Delhi airport is adding baggage screening systems at the security checks and increasing traffic marshals to avoid vehicles clogging the departure.

Delhi airport has deployed 26 additional staffers to help passengers in the entry forecourt and security area and is working with the security agency Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to have full manning through Flexi shift from 5 am to avoid queue build-up.