City airport all set for upgrade in 2020.

Over the next 12 months, GVK-led Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) aims to stabilise growth by undertaking initiatives, along with stakeholders, to increase the efficiency of the airport.

According to the City Airport 2020 Plan, there will be technological advancement, newer route development and capacity enhancement at the airport. It would include increasing the number of international and domestic operations from Mumbai, building India’s largest airport-based pharma cargo handling capacity, introducing new brands and categories at the terminal, and adding advanced IT systems and superior safety features to give one of the busiest airports in the world an edge over the others.

A spokesperson for the Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) said CSMIA now offers 47 international destinations and 61 domestic routes. “In 2020, the airport plans to expand its connectivity to include at least seven international destinations, including Russia and China. With the development of new international routes, the terminal is expected to see steady growth in passenger traffic,” the spokesperson said.

In 2018-19, MIAL catered to 48.8 million passengers and introduced several measures to enhance operational efficiency and passenger convenience. The measures included e-gates, paperless boarding passes, pre-ordering food with delivery at the boarding gate, realignment of airline operations between terminals, addition of boarding gates at Terminal 1, and airside safety measures.

Through 2020, MIAL plans to introduce technology which will provide self-service taxi booking facility, an end-to-end advanced safety feature, tagging of passenger details, and vehicle registration number and drivers’ face with booking receipt for seamless and secure passenger travel.

MIAL is also set to introduce trolley management systems, full-body scanners, and advanced tray retrieval systems to ease operations and reduce on queuing time.

The trolley management system will ensure that a fixed number of trolleys are available at each bay throughout the day, regardless of actual demand.

Full-body scanners at certain gates will enable airport authorities to deal with the threat of non-metallic, plastic explosives and terrorism tools, including chemical, biological and radiation without physical contact. Machines that can scan hand luggage without having laptops and liquids removed are also likely to be installed.

Advanced tray retrieval systems will ease operations and reduce on queuing time at the security check point. “The system consists of a built-in tray return conveyor belt. This allows the empty trays to automatically return to the new passenger awaiting his turn and passengers will no longer need to be security screened in different locations. Families can stay together and will be screened together,” an official said.

An MIAL spokesperson said 2019 proved to be a challenging year for the airport with the closure of Jet Airways, and extensive runway maintenance work.

THE HINDU