After TOI report on trolley woes, airport shunts out contractor
Times of India | 4 January 2024
Kolkata: Kolkata airport authorities have decided to not to renew the contract of the existing agency handling retrieval of trolleys following a barrage of complaints from passengers. A new agency will be appointed and a time limit will be set to bring trolleys back from outside the terminal to the baggage carousel in the arrival level and from within the terminal to outside the departure level.
On Tuesday, TOI had written about the dearth of trolleys at the airport, which had affected passengers during the peak homecoming season.
“We had received a number of complaints regarding the delay in retrieval of trolleys. Hence, we have decided not to renew the tender of the agency that is currently deployed for the job. Their tenure expires in a little more than a month. A fresh tender will be floated and we are looking for a new agency that can handle the responsibility in a better way,” said a senior official of the airport.
TOI had written how a majority of problems were reported mostly at late nights when a number of flights, both international and domestic, touch down at the airport. The passengers carry their luggage out of the terminal onto the road outside the airport and leave the trolleys there, but none apparently take them back to the place they are usually stacked.
“We have identified this problem and hence have taken some temporary corrective measures, which include deploying additional airport staff to oversee retrieval of trolleys at night. However, this cannot be a permanent solution. The new agency would be given a time frame within which they will have to retrieve the trolleys back to the scheduled areas. We will set them a target of the minimum number of trolleys that will have to be there at the stack at any time of the day,” said the official.
The airport currently has 6,000 trolleys and around 1,500 more are undergoing minor repairs. They will be brought in the system as and when needed. “We don’t have any dearth of trolleys. We just need to streamline their retrieval,” said the official.
Airline officials, however, said no move by the authorities is likely to bring about any change in the way of operation of the handlers. “The problem is with the handlers who enjoy immunity from the union leaders. The new agency will have to work with the same set of handlers and unless they change themselves, any major change on the ground is unlikely,” said an airline official.
However, the official added that with a likely dip in footfall from next week, when vacations will end and all schools will reopen, the pressure at the airport will reduce automatically.
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