The Hindu Business Line : New airport woes: They happen elsewhere too

Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International that opened in March and Bengaluru that is barely a week into business can take heart that they are in elite company, especially from Asia. The Web is full of scary tales of how air passengers were let down across many new airports, across their many ground functions.

British Airways’ T5 ‘terminal illness’ at Heathrow is only too new: T5 which opened at Heathrow in March failed in baggage handling, caused thousands of luggage pieces to pile up and forced over 250 flight cancellations in the early days. There is no clear update on whether T5 has recovered from the nightmare. If that was in London, lesser Asian greenfields that have sprung up in recent years also fell far short of perfection in the early days. Today, frequent fliers rave about how cool it is to go through these very airports: Hong Kong, Incheon in South Korea; Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi.

Best-laid plans can go awry: An aviation major has armed itself in recent months with an internal list of glitches that plagued these four premier Asian hubs in their first weeks.

According to the report that is available with Business Line, HKIA (July 1998) was crippled for almost six months; cargo mishandling alone caused losses of HK$ 4.6 billion and forced its government to reopen the old Kai Tak airport for freight. Some 22 core glitches threw every function out of gear: baggage; ramp handling; flight information display; aerobridges; escalators; cleaning, phones, among others.

March 2001: Incheon International Airport replaces the old Gimpo. It took one month to get to normalcy but not before passengers suffered had luggage blues and limited access.

Those who have touched down at Hyderabad’s RGIA say it reminds them of KLIA - after all, Malaysian Airports Bhd is part of the operator consortium. Early days of KLIA (that opened July 1998 after HKIA) saw cargo problems that caused perishable cargo such as vegetables and seafood waiting for days to be cleared. “Software glitches forced passenger delays,” the report says.

RGIA, now into its third month, faced criticism in March-April for ground-handling lapses. “We have overcome the initial glitches in the three areas of safety, security and passenger service. After the initial hiccups, we are able to put things in place, ensuring smooth functioning,” said Mr A. Vishwanath, Chief Commercial Officer of RGIA.

Bengaluru International Airport at Devanahalli, now under watch, also faced complaints of slow baggage retrieval and slow aerobridges in the first three days. “Each airport transition is unique,” said its spokesperson. “Even in comparison to other such transitions around the world, this airport has rated not bad. Of course, it could have been better.”

Suvarnabhumi (that opened in September 2006), according to the report, faced “rampant sluggish luggage claims”; the first few flights took 1-4 hours for the luggage to come out. A score flights were delayed, apart from trouble at check-in, cargo computers and departure display.

So when the domestic newbies say glitches are normal, we should perhaps hear them out.

Related Stories:
Blues galore at Bengaluru International Airport
Hyderabad airport: The changes in the air

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