Emphasise on Passenger care
By G S Bhatura, Executive Director, Airports Authority of India

An airport primarily allows transfer from aircraft to the land mode of transport or vice versa. If there was a choice one would like to spend the minimum time at an airport unless friendly environment encouraged shopping at its malls. At airport Passengers spend time to comply with travel related formalities or wait for their flight. On departure, they look for a good approach road to airport terminal, a convenient place to get down from their car or bus, proper guidance signs, neat and clean terminal with well planned flow route/facilities and friendly airport officials. 

Similarly arriving passengers wish to collect their baggage within a reasonable time, complete formalities and leave airport taking a reliable transport to their destination. Air transport serves time sensitive market, and passengers would like to have a smooth and faster passage through the airport. 

Airports Authority of India (AAI) manages 92 civil airports and 28 small passenger terminals at defence airports. It is seen that scheduled flights are operating through sixty airports only.

Upgradation of Indian airports is a continuous process. AAI in the VIII Plan (1992-97) had spent Rs. 1512 crores on airport development. It proposes to spend another Rs. 3400 crores in the IX Plan (1997-2002) period. Today 4 of its airports are capable to handle B-747 operations, 14 airports A-300, 35 airports A-320, 61 airports B-737, 86 airports Fokker 27 and more than 100 airports Dornnier type of aircraft. For safety of flights a number of airports are equipped with navigational and landing facilities. 

To talk of terminal facilities, five airports situated at Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkota and Trivandrum have been prepared to be the gateways to the country. In addition model airports at Jaipur, Lucknow, Indore, Nagpur, Vadodara, Calicut, Coimbatore, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Imphal and custom airports at Amritsar, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Goa, and Trichy have been developed to handle limited number of international flights. These airports provide facilities comparable to world standards. 

The augmented airport capacities at majority of airports are adequate to meet the traffic demand. Some time congestion is experienced at smaller airports whenever there are more than one flight on ground. This problem can be solved by spreading the flights as is practiced by other progressive airports world over.

Having created terminal capacities at all the capital city airports, airports of tourist interest and other airports of strategic importance where domestic airlines are operating, AAI has initiated steps to make 1 passenger terminals more functional by improving guidance signs in terminals, providing flight information, making faster baggage delivery, providing adequate number of baggage trolleys etc. Private sector has been involved to run concessions and provide other services viz. telephone and facsimile service, car rental/prepaid taxi service etc. To receive direct feed back from airport users AAI has also introduced suggestion cards at its airports. A passenger or a visitor to its airports can give his suggestions in the boxes kept at convenient places at the airport terminals, or send them on a postage pre-paid cards received in Corporate Office. 

Indian airports emphasise on customer care as is visible from the message on their suggestion card. 

Dear Passenger/Visitor 
In our philosophy you are very purpose (doing us a favour by letting us serve you). It is our endeavour to serve you better. Therefore, may we request you for your comments/ suggestions on the services and facilities offered at the airport and staff attitude. In case your comments are w.r.t. a service then also indicate the name of the shop/service, name of the staff, time, etc. Please write down your mailing address so that we can respond to your comments. 
Chairman Airports Authority of India.

Grievance redress units have also been established at airports. Police assistance is also made available at airport terminals. 

To ascertain customers needs, monthly airport co-ordination committee meetings are taken by Airport Directors. These meetings are attended by airlines, customs and other agencies including passenger and cargo associations. 

AAI aims to achieve a satisfaction level of 80-85% in the new millennium. All this can be achieved by properly trained staff for the task. For imparting need based quality training AAI have established a National Institute of Aviation Management and Research at New Delhi and training centres at regional headquarters and international airports. Developing human resources is a challenge and AAI is addressing to it seriously.