The list of lacunae at the new domestic terminal of the Chennai airport seems unending.
Three months after it was thrown open for use, the new domestic terminal continues to function without a WiFi facility, said officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI).
“The process to have the facility in the new terminal has been on for over a year now. The contract has been given to Viom network. It may have the facility installed by September. For the old domestic terminal and the old international terminal, Tata Teleservices provide the network. There is good bandwidth of 512 kbps inside the old international terminal,” said an AAI official.
After completing check-in and security procedures, passengers may have at least an hour before they board their flight. Many, during this time, prefer to surf the internet and the lack of WiFi facility at the airport irks them. Raghu Lakshman (42), a frequent flyer who is based out of Chennai, said, “Earlier, in the old domestic terminal, the connectivity was quite poor is some places. WiFi at the airport is certainly important because we may want to catch up with work and send official mails while we wait.”
D. Sudhakar Reddy of Air Passengers Association of India (APAI) said that 30-40 per cent of the travellers may want to avail this facility. "We are living at a time when most people who travel carry their laptops with them. Hence, it is not fair if we don’t have good WiFi facility. Some passengers have already complained about poor internet connectivity at the old domestic and international terminals of the airport," he said.
Other metros too grapple with below-par WiFi connectivity, said another AAI official. “This is one of the important issues to be looked into. In our terminals, some of the areas have poor connectivity but it is because of the design of the terminal,” he said.
