In 2015, Delhi Airport was ranked world’s best airport by Airports Council International in the 25-40 Million Passengers per annum category. It has also won best airport in Central/South Asia and the best airport in India by Skytrax multiple times.
However, the Delhi airport recently made news for being of the most chaotic airports in the country. Social media was flooded with pictures of the turmoil at every step that awaited you at the airport.
To be fair, prompt action was taken. The Minister of Civil Aviation inspected the airport. A parliamentary panel took notice of the situation. The problem has since eased. However, structural, procedural, and mindset issues remain leaving the airport vulnerable to the chaos again.
This is not just about Delhi Airport. If this is the situation at India’s best airport, one can only imagine the other airports. Let’s just say, flying in India, like many other things in India, is a stressful experience. We Indians seem to have accepted that we will never have a smooth, hassle-free way of life. It must be a struggle, or else we don’t deserve it.
Hence, we make airports worth billions of dollars, charge all passengers who pass through it a hefty fee, and yet give them such a hard time to just get to their seat on the plane.
This isn’t just about Indians though. Airports are the first impression a foreign visitor gets of India when they arrive in our country. India being chaotic is already a stereotype. Must we demonstrate it right-away upon landing? Nothing screams third world than an out-of-control, chaotic, stressful airport. The world’s elite pass through our airports and judge us on it. Hence, fixing Indian airports should be a national imperative.
Here are the six implementable suggestions on how we can make Indian airports better immediately.
- Change Mindset – the first and biggest reason is the mindset that Indians deserve to live in scarcity. That if it somehow works, even if badly, just let it be and don’t improve. We may build first world facilities, but our mind is still third world. Hence, first believe that we deserve the best, in the world.
- Do cheap upgrades for massive efficiency gains – we spend billions of dollars on a terminal building. However, we won’t spend a thousandth of that to get the latest X-ray machines that do not require laptops to be taken out (yes, those exist). We also can get body scanners that eliminate mini-massage level frisking and speed things up. Other equipment – the touch screens at the check-in kiosks, the bar code scanners – all low-quality with not as responsive screens. Just get the best in the market and upgrade every three years.
- Airport Entry check procedure – I understand why we check everyone who enters an airport. Indian families have a tendency to come in droves to drop one person off. However, it slows things down a lot. Instead, eliminate this (most leading global airports don’t have this). We do not need to check passengers coming in to the check-in area. We can instead check the people leaving the check-in terminal without taking a flight. We could even do random sampling in the check-in area. Anyone loitering without a ticket can be heavily fined. This will eliminate the massive bottleneck at entry points.
- Security check for hand baggage – better machines that eliminate need to take the laptop and electronics out will save huge time, as would body scanners that eliminate frisking. These upgrade costs are nothing compared to the cost of the airport and time savings gained.
- More Aerobridges –many flights still do not get an aerobridge. Why? If we are at capacity, what will happen in the next 10 years? Are we going to still take people to terminals in buses as done in the 1980s?
- Exiting airport – One particularly poor aspect of some Indian airports is getting a taxi or rideshare cab upon exit. Many places there is a huge walk to the car pick up point. There, Ubers and Olas jam up, creating a permanent traffic jam as we haven’t thought about making loading bays and smooth exits from the airport. What’s the point of a great airport if it is a nightmare to exit it? Also, pre-paid cabs are from the 1980s when drivers would take passengers astray. With GPS and tracking, can we please eliminate pre-paid fares (and the resulting queues) and have fares based on distance?
Overall, we need to redefine what we think is a great airport. It is not the artwork or sculptures that matter. It is minimizing the total time from entry to boarding or the total time from deplane to exit. And eliminating as many hassles as possible. A great airport can be a joy to visit. People can spend more time and money there, helping the airport earn more.
If we are serious about becoming a leading nation of the world, we have to fix our airports.
Yes, we Indians like raunak, mela and crowds, but airports are not the places for it. Chaos at airports leads to stress for all involved and a poor impression of the country. Let’s fix it!