NEW DELHI: The fear of not finding a trolley at Delhi airport will cease to haunt the air passengers soon. With the Airports Authority of India (AAI) deciding to bring in 2,000 shiny new trolleys to augment its fleet, passengers will no longer need to get territorial about their trolleys.

"There will be 1,600 trolleys added to the existing fleet to meet the needs of the fast growing air passenger traffic. Some trolleys were added last week. There will be 400 more trolleys arriving soon,'' said a senior official.

The lack of trolleys, however, is only a small hiccup in an infrastructure that is bursting at the seams with a large number of passengers taking to air in view of the no-frills airlines making it easier for individuals to use the air space more often.

With passengers complaining that they have to desperately seek trolleys, especially during the peak hours when a number of flights land, these trolleys will be distributed at both the international and domestic terminals to minimise inconvenience to passengers. Experiencing an aviation boom with the cheap tickets, private and no-frill airlines, the air traffic in India hit 59.2 million passengers in 2004-05 as opposed to 48.7 million passengers the year before, according to ASSOCHAM Eco Pulse Survey. And with another new airline, GoAir, likely to join the no-frill airline bandwagon in Delhi later this month, the rush of passengers is only going to increase.

Delhi sees 25 to 28 flights per hour on an average, battling a serious infrastructure crunch. And this number is only on its way up.

Unable to cope with the influx of traffic, basic amenities like trolleys need to be augmented tremendously and often get lost in the large issues of modernisation. However, it is an immediate demand that needs to be met even as major modernisation plans are being drawn up for the airport.

Apart from dramatically increasing the number of trolleys on the ground, AAI is also examining the possibility of increasing the number of conveyor belts at the terminal.

With the airlines outnumbering the belts, while there are five belts at the terminal there are six carriers, leading to frequent problems, especially if airlines have more than one flight arriving at the same time.

Cramped for space, adding an extra belt will not be easy, but might become necessary especially with new players flying into the city.

And to tackle this problem, officials are examining whether it is possible to enhance the existing infrastructure.

"In the privatisation bid, the AAI is really not supposed to add anything to the airport. But the process of handing over will take a few months. With the growing traffic, it really is not easy to wait also,'' points out an official.

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