All 18 aerobridges undergo repairs after flyers’ plaints
Times of India | 24 February 2024
Kolkata: Acting on complaints about the poor condition of aerobridges at Kolkata airport, the authorities have started a thorough overhaul of the 18 aerobridges in service at the integrated terminal. Officials said 11 out of 18 aerobridges had already been completely refurbished and work on the rest will be completed in next six months.
Aerobridges allow passengers direct access between the terminal building and the aircraft.It is the fastest boarding process as passengers can walk into the aircraft from the terminal building in less than 2-3 minutes. It also insulates passengers from vagaries of nature.
Over the past few months, multiple passengers have written on the airport’s social media handles about dripping water, poor cooling, old and stained carpets and lack of proper ventilation in the aerobridges. The folds in the complicated roofing structure as well as joints between the profiled metal sheets in the roof and the glass on the facade had also developed gaps.
Flyer Sumit Gupta while travelling to Mumbai from Kolkata had posted on Feb 20: “Boarding in IndiGo flight 6E 0313 CCU to BOM. I was boarding from Gate# 2 of Kolkata airport. I am surprised to see the under-maintained aerobridge here...”
“We noted the complaints, recognised the need to act on them and began complete refurbishment of aerobridges. We are taking up repairs of two aerobridges at a time so that flyers and airlines are not inconvenienced. Eleven of them have been renovated and overhaul of the rest will be completed by Aug,” said a senior airport official.
The official added the airport is also in the process to get 20 more aerobridges during its next two phases of expansion to take the total count to 38 by 2030.
At the old Kolkata airport, there were four aerobridges, three for use by domestic flights and one for international. At the new integrated terminal, there are 18 aerobridges. Of them, eight are exclusively for domestic use, six for use by flyers boarding international flights and four swing aerobridges that can be used by either domestic or international flights as per the requirement.
While the current aerobridges branch out directly from terminal building, following the expansion, the two new buildings will each have a portal or corridor extending out perpendicularly towards the apron area. On either side of this portal will be five boarding gates with aerobridges.