Delhi Airport Chaos: Key Decision After Minister's "No Shortage" Remark

The Union Home Ministry will deploy an additional 1,200 personnel from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) at the Delhi airport — adding to the 5,000-odd already deployed — to ensure faster security checks and ease the holiday season rush, NDTV has learnt.

Sources said the decision was taken at a meeting called by the Home Secretary after days of complaints that it's taking more than four hours, as opposed to the usual two hours, to complete the check-in process before people can board flights.

The CISF is in charge of security checks, and also patrols and inspects the airport as part of anti-terrorism duties.

This comes a day after the Civil Aviation Minister said to NDTV that he'd been told there is no shortage of CISF, and that the high wait time was an "operations issue" due to the level of rush that "nobody had expected". He did tell news agency ANI that CISF deployment could be increased too.

Today, the airport authorities said the wait time at security lines has come down to four minutes. It was stretching beyond an hour over the past three weeks.

Terminal 3 update at 10:00 hours.

Smooth terminal entry can be seen at all gates with an average waiting time of 1-4 mins.
Smart Travel Tip: For a smooth security check experience, travel with only one hand baggage as cabin luggage to the airport and download #DigiYatra (1/2) pic.twitter.com/nPVyEkAAa8

— Delhi Airport (@DelhiAirport) December 15, 2022

Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia yesterday told NDTV that security check counters have gone up from 13 to 17. "In a few days we hope to increase it to 20 security lines. We have also removed all unnecessary barricades," he said.

He had claimed that the congestion was "not a CISF issue". 

#TheNews | Situation Will Improve In 7-10 Days: Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia (@JM_Scindia) On Delhi Airport Chaos https://t.co/yHxHEwW94n pic.twitter.com/WjFnAkFQsP

— NDTV (@ndtv) December 14, 2022

"There is no shortfall of CISF personnel. The DG of CISF was with me in the three-hour meeting and I asked the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) as well, if this was a CISF issue. I was told there is no problem from CISF side. They are in fact cooperating fully with the airport requirements," he said.

He had promised that the situation will improve "in the next 7-10 days" as new measures "get implemented fully". Measures include asking airlines to spread out the flights and not bunch these together during peak hours in the morning.