Chaos at Delhi airport ahead of holiday weekend
Hundreds of passengers on Thursday witnessed delays in baggage clearance due to system failure leading to long queues and flight delays at Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport.
"With onset of holiday weekend, Delhi airport experienced increased level of dangerous goods, particularly power banks and lighters in luggage. Incident rate was 30 percent higher than average. It impacted baggage handling due to the manual reconciliation of the suspect baggage," a Delhi airport spokesperson said.
Following the incident, several passengers took to social media to vent their anger over the inordinate delays in baggage clearance.
Meanwhile in a statement, Vistara Airlines notified its customers about the inconvenience caused due to the systems failure.
"Please be advised that Delhi airport has been facing challenges with the baggage handling system post check-in. All airlines and hundreds of bags have been impacted, not being loaded on to flights. The airlines have taken this up with Delhi airport officials, and they are working on a solution," the statement read.
Here’s the full statement released by Delhi airport on its official Twitter handle:
With the holiday weekend, Delhi airport today experienced an increased level of dangerous goods, particularly power banks and lighters, in customer checked-in luggage. The incident rate today was 30% higher than an average day. This impacted the baggage handling processing due to the manual reconciliation of the suspect baggage with the passenger and removal of the prohibited item.
Passengers are being reminded, not to pack these items in their checked-luggage to avoid inconvenience. This has reduced the instances of passengers sending their baggage with prohibited items on the baggage handling system and hence the issue is now under control.
- With agency inputs
