New Delhi: Delhi airport operator DIAL is conducting trials for smooth transfer of cabin baggage from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 for passengers arriving from international destinations and having a connecting flight from T1, according to a top official.
Once such a facility is in place, the baggage will be transferred through the airside and passengers will not have to carry the baggage physically for their connecting domestic flight at T1.
Under existing norms, passengers arriving from international destinations at the Delhi airport have to complete their immigration and customs clearance, for which they have to take their cabin baggage after landing at the Delhi airport. For the connecting flight, the passengers have to check in their baggage again.
DIAL CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar on Friday said the airport is conducting trials for smooth transfer of baggage from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 for passengers having a connecting flight.
T3 and T1 are some distance apart and passengers have to travel by road from one terminal to the other.
Jaipuriar said that trials are being conducted and once the system is implemented, then, after customs clearance, the passenger will not have to carry the baggage to T1. The passenger can drop the baggage at T3, and the airline concerned will transfer it to T1 through the airside, he said at a briefing in the national capital.
In India, a passenger coming from overseas has to do the immigration and customs clearance at the first port of entry.
Meanwhile, DIAL has told the civil aviation ministry that transfer of passengers for connecting flights from T1 to T3 will be completed in 120 minutes.
Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), which is operating the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in the national capital, has three terminals -- T1, T2 and T3. T2 will be temporarily shut for maintenance work from next week.
Against this backdrop, Jaipuriar said that since there will be a lot of connecting traffic from T1 to T3, "we have committed to the government that it will be ensured that passengers coming out of T1 can board a flight in T3 in 120 minutes".
In a post on X on Friday, DIAL said that effective April 15 (0001 hours), all flights currently operating from T2 will shift to T1 until further notice and that the change is due to planned maintenance work at T2, which will remain non-operational during this period.
According to the DIAL chief, the airport is ready for inter terminal connectivity and the operator is also working with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on revamping the check in facilities at metro stations. Currently, the facility is available at New Delhi and Shivaji Stadium metro stations.
To a query from PTI on whether there are plans to reduce the screening time for passengers, Jaipuriar said it is something that which comes to the security but upgradation of machines can help them reduce the time.
"We work closely with the security regulators to get the newer technologies... we are doing full body scanner trails which possibly will reduce the frisking time and (also) when final aspects of CTX machines are ready, that is going to reduce hand baggage screening time," he noted.
CTX refers to Computed Tomography X-Ray machines.
IGIA is the country's busiest airport.
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