Kolkata: Kolkata airport authorities have asked airlines to recalibrate the weigh scales they use to check the weight of passengers' carry-on luggage to ensure accurate measurement.
The message follows a complaint by a flyer of harassment by an airline ground staff member, while she was transiting through Kolkata airport. The passenger, Amrita Singh, claimed she missed her connecting flight from Kolkata to Delhi on Nov 23 after the airline ground staff demanded payment for excess baggage. According to her, the bag that weighed 7.4 kg at Guwahati, when she boarded the flight to Kolkata, tipped the scale to 9.5 kg at Kolkata airport.
Kolkata airport authorities said airlines usually do not check the weight of cabin bags unless they appear extremely bulky and are difficult to fit in the overhead luggage compartment. The authorities also said they had asked airlines to ensure that the ground staff weigh the luggage on calibrated scales.
"Anomalies creep in when a scale is not calibrated. At Kolkata airport, there are 146 scales with check-in counters. All of them are calibrated once a year so that the measurement is accurate. But we do not know what scales airlines use at the boarding gates. They could be portable handheld ones. These scales too have to be calibrated to ensure that the measurement is correct," the airport official said. The incident, involving Singh, occurred at bus boarding gate 106. An airline staff member weighed her bags and informed her they exceeded the limit, requiring an additional payment of Rs 1,500, or she would be denied boarding. Singh's argument that she travelled from Guwahati to Kolkata on the same airline with the carry-on bag was disregarded.
Most airlines allow 7 kg carry-on luggage of a specified size per passenger travelling in economy class, in addition to 3 kg for a laptop bag or handbag. The aggrieved passenger also claimed that she got the bags weighed again and the scale showed 7.4 kg.
Travel Agents Federation of India chairman (east) Anil Punjabi said airline staff must act responsibly, adding that not just weigh scales, even attitudes needed recalibration. According to a survey that received 36,000 responses from passengers, six out of 10 airline passengers experienced one or more instances of discrepancy in baggage weight at airports in the past three years.