Despite practice drills and a thorough briefing by airport authorities, the transition of all Jet Airways operations to the swanky Terminal 2 of Sahar threw all airport functions awry due to the large number of fliers and inadequate personnel to handle them.
Fliers had to brave snaking queues, stretching across two floors after Jet Airways officially made the shift to T2. The passengers joined domestic fliers from Air India and Vistara at T2 and together, there were about 2,000 of them cramped into a space equipped to handle only about 400 fliers at a time.
The airline's maiden domestic flight operating out of T2 was the Kolkata-bound flight 9W 484 at 2.25 am. Airline sources said that as Jet Airways passengers started arriving to join the other passengers, only nine of the 15 security hold points were manned by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel.
After the airline raised the issue, a manpower reassessment was carried out and the counters were increased to 11. Under the plan drawn up by Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), airlines will move their domestic operations to T2, thus leading to the integration of their domestic and international flight operations under one terminal roof, resulting in a smoother experience for fliers.
"The check-in at Level 4 was smooth. But the walk from there to the pre-security hold area located a floor lower was at snail's pace. This led to total chaos among passengers, most fuming with anger," A Ravindranath, a retired customs officer said.
16/03/16 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror
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Fliers had to brave snaking queues, stretching across two floors after Jet Airways officially made the shift to T2. The passengers joined domestic fliers from Air India and Vistara at T2 and together, there were about 2,000 of them cramped into a space equipped to handle only about 400 fliers at a time.
The airline's maiden domestic flight operating out of T2 was the Kolkata-bound flight 9W 484 at 2.25 am. Airline sources said that as Jet Airways passengers started arriving to join the other passengers, only nine of the 15 security hold points were manned by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel.
After the airline raised the issue, a manpower reassessment was carried out and the counters were increased to 11. Under the plan drawn up by Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), airlines will move their domestic operations to T2, thus leading to the integration of their domestic and international flight operations under one terminal roof, resulting in a smoother experience for fliers.
"The check-in at Level 4 was smooth. But the walk from there to the pre-security hold area located a floor lower was at snail's pace. This led to total chaos among passengers, most fuming with anger," A Ravindranath, a retired customs officer said.
16/03/16 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror
