Baggage arrival time improves at six airports

New Delhi: The baggage delivery time at Delhi, Mumbai and four other major airports has improved significantly in the last four months, with more than 90% of the passengers getting their belongings within 30 minutes of the landing of an aircraft, according to the civil aviation ministry.

This comes after the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) in January started an exercise to boost the baggage delivery systems of domestic airlines at the country's six major airports: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation on Tuesday said when the exercise was started on January 14, only 62.2% of the passengers were getting their baggage within IATA-prescribed timelines.

After a detailed analysis of the matter by the BCAS and domestic airlines, efforts were made to overhaul and upgrade equipment, services and monitoring in order to speed up baggage delivery.

This led to on-time baggage delivery improving to more than 90% from March 2024 onwards, it said, adding: "...the percentage of bags arriving within 30 minutes has reached a high of 92.5% in May 2024."

After it launched the initiative, the bureau monitored baggage arrival time of all airlines at the six airports on a weekly basis and found that they are not according to the standard set in the operation, management and delivery agreements (OMDAs). OMDAs are the agreement the Airport Authority of India had signed with the Delhi and Mumbai airports during their privatisation in 2006. It defines standards of service that the airport must provide to passengers.