No more hand luggage stamping at city airport

BHUBANESWAR: In a major relief to the passengers, Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) from Saturday discontinued the procedure of stamping hand baggage tags. Informing this, BPIA Director Suresh Chandra Hota said the stamping of hand baggage tags has been discontinued at Terminal 1. The new protocols are only meant for domestic passengers and those travelling to international destinations will have to get their hand baggage tags stamped as usual, he added.

A committee comprising officials of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which is tasked to secure 59 civil airports against security threats, and the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) along with the airport operators was constituted early this year by the Union Government to smoothen the roll-out of this new protocol at all the airfields guarded by the paramilitary force. The CISF had earlier conducted a trial run at BPIA and the force had asked the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to improve facilities like CCTV and scanners before ending the stamping of baggage procedure here, sources said.

The old stamping of hand baggage bags procedure had been a major irritant for passengers and they have made many complaints in this regard to airport authorities stating that the procedure consumes a lot of time and in case they forget to get it tagged, security personnel ask them to go back and get it done.
 In another development, Air Asia on Saturday started new flights from Bhubaneswar to Ranchi and vice versa. About 45 passengers boarded the flight from Bhubaneswar on Saturday, while 124 passengers arrived at the airport here. The flight will operate daily.