Cyclone backlog, Kali Puja homecomings: Daily arrivals at city airport hit 38k peak
Times of India | 28 October 2024
Kolkata: With 38,000 passengers, the city airport recorded the highest single-day arrivals this year on Saturday. Airport officials said the festival break, along with additional passengers on rescheduled flights due to Cyclone Dana, led to the sudden rush of flyers heading back to Kolkata.
On Saturday, 33,687 passengers arrived in Kolkata on 197 domestic flights. There were another 4,289 passengers arriving from abroad on 24 international flights, making it a total of 37,976 passenger arrivals in a day. Even during Durga Puja, the highest number of passengers arriving in a day was 35,618 on Sashthi.
The airport was shut for 13.5 hours from 7 pm on Oct 24 to 8.30 am on Oct 25 as a precautionary measure against Cyclone Dana. As a result, only 277 flights operated on Oct 24, and on Oct 25, there were 302 operations. On Oct 26, the number increased to 438 flight operations, including 197 domestic arrivals and another 24 international arrivals.
“Several flights were cancelled and rescheduled because of the airport closure on those two days. As a result, there was an increased rush of passengers on Saturday as well as Sunday. Plus, there was the additional rush of passengers returning home for Diwali. We called for additional manpower and took extensive measures to ensure the passengers had a smooth transit,” said a senior airport official.
Chitpore resident Mrinmoy Mukherjee, who works at a tech firm in Bengaluru, said, “My family of three were booked on a later evening flight to Kolkata from Bengaluru on Thursday, which was cancelled, and we were rescheduled on another flight on Saturday.”
The additional rush of passengers also led to a shortage of cabs on the road outside the airport. “Huge chaos at Kolkata Airport. No public transport, no cabs... Nothing,” wrote a flyer Pramit Chatterjee, on X.
Officials said a higher number of CISF personnel and airport staff were deployed for the weekend, and more cleaning staff were deployed to increase the cleanup and maintenance of washrooms in the arrival area of the airport.
“To handle the huge load of inbound passengers, we also deployed additional men around the conveyor belts,” said another airport official.