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Baggage delivery time at major airports increased by 30%: Civil aviation ministry
The BCAS in January undertook an exercise to enhance the baggage delivery system of domestic airlines in the six major airports – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru
New Delhi: The baggage delivery time at major airports increased by 30% since January, and more than 90% of the passengers have been receiving their checked-in baggage within 30 minutes after landing, according to findings released by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), security wing of ministry of civil aviation (MoCA), on Tuesday.
“From 62.2% of passengers getting on-time baggage delivery in January, the number increased to more than 90% from March 2024 onwards. More importantly, the progress has been sustained since then, and the percentage of bags arriving within 30 mins has reached a high of 92.5% in May 2024,” a statement issued by the civil aviation ministry said.
The BCAS in January undertook an exercise to enhance the baggage delivery system of domestic airlines in the six major airports – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
This, aviation ministry officials said, was done as part of the efforts taken to avoid congestion at airports and to have better security.
In a letter dated February 16, the BCAS, after studying the time taken by each airline to deliver their baggage to conveyor belts, wrote to the airlines pointing out errors in obeying rules.
It asked the airlines to ensure that the passengers’ checked-in luggage reached them within 30 minutes after their arrival. As per the global standards prescribed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Schedule 3 of the Operation, Management and Development Agreement (OMDA) with airports, baggage should be delivered to passengers within 30 minutes of the arrival of the aircraft.
A root cause analysis was undertaken jointly by the BCAS along with all domestic airlines. The exercise was launched on January 14 this year, during which it was found that only 62.2% of the passengers were getting their baggage within IATA-prescribed timelines.
“Post the above exercise, an overhaul and upgradation in equipment, services and monitoring was put in place to speed up baggage delivery. After two months of evaluation, it can be concluded through the latest findings that there has been a marked increase in the percentage of baggage complying with the globally accepted prescribed limit”, the ministry stated.
“In phase 2, the government has advised all international airlines, as well as domestic airlines operating in other airports to ramp up baggage delivery timings following the same efforts,” the ministry said on Tuesday.
