Marking the culmination of a bomb-scare drama that lasted about two days, the Mumbai-Kochi flight of Air India flew into the Cochin International Airport amid high security arrangements on Saturday.
The flight AI054 touched down at the airport here at 7.40 a.m. with 123 passengers and six crew members on board. The passengers and their luggage were cleared after detailed examinations and the threat was later declared unfounded.
“All is clear and the bomb threat now appears to be a hoax,” said an airport official, adding that the aircraft was ready for its return trip to Mumbai later in the day.
Security at the airport had been beefed up since Friday on the direction of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) in the wake of a suicide bomb threat on a couple of Air India flights. An anonymous call, received at the regional office of the Airports Authority of India at Kolkata, threatened suicide bomb blasts on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai flight scheduled for Friday midnight and the Mumbai-Kochi flight scheduled early Saturday.
The call was later passed on to the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), following which a high-level meeting attended by security experts was held to review the situation.
The meeting, chaired by airport director A.C.K. Nair, was held in the presence of Anand Mohan, DIG, Chennai Region, and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
As part of strengthening the security apparatus, bomb detection and disposal squad, quick response team, CISF and police personnel are keeping constant vigil at the airport. Security at the airport perimeter entrance has also been tightened.
CIAL officials said the airport would remain on high alert till the next security review meeting to be held on Monday.
The situation will be analysed during the meeting after which a decision to continue with the high security or not will be taken.
Meanwhile, airline officials maintained that the airline stood to lose much from such hoax threats as it would affect its ticket sales. “Customers who were planning to buy tickets were influenced by reports of bomb threat and it had a negative impact on ticket sales for the last couple of days,” said a senior airline official.
“Besides, adjusting security measures to fit an ever-evolving threat environment is also a costly affair as we cannot take these calls lightly and have to carry out the usual emergency drills each time a bomb threat call is received,” he said.
