Airports Authority of India (AAI) will rope in an additional ground handling agency at Chennai airport to ease the congestion and ensure quick arrival of baggage at the terminal from the aircraft.
AAI officials said there was one firm which has been taking care of the ground handling operations but since they feel this was not enough, they were planning to bring in a new operator.
A ground handling firm in an airport takes care of various functions from baggage transportation to offering assistance and services to airlines in the airside.
After the COVID-19 relaxations came into place, Chennai airport has been recording a growth in passenger and aircraft traffic and while this was a good trend, the airport has been struggling to cope with the rush.
There are nearly 350 aircraft movements and 45,000 passengers use the on an average every day. As a result, congestion has gone up and this resulted in the delay in the arrival of baggage from the aircraft to terminals forcing passengers to wait for a long time, sometimes even an hour.
“We will call for tenders in a few weeks and the new agency may take over in a few months. We have not turned a blind eye to this problem. We have held meetings and tried to iron out this issue. But now we think that if an additional operator comes in, this delay in baggage arrival to the terminal could be reduced drastically,” an official said.
