Passengers travelling through the domestic terminal of Chennai airport can finally heave a sigh of relief, as the scanning process of their check-in baggage is all set to become seamless in a couple of day.
By Wednesday, Chennai airport’s domestic terminal will have new Inline Baggage Screening (ILBS) system and will replace the old X-Ray machines. So passengers will not have to carry their heavy baggage and send it for scanning through the X-Ray machines. Like the international terminal, where passengers just go to collect their boarding cards at the check-in counter and drop off their baggage, here too, this will happen henceforth.
Officials of Airports Authorities of India (AAI) said, they are waiting to get some manpower which they plan to have by Monday. “For the next few days, we will run a few checks and trials to see if the working mechanism is fine and to check for issues. Once we fix all this, we plan to open it on Wednesday itself,” an official said.
The domestic terminal has had long queues during peak hours in the morning and passengers are usually forced to wait for a long time to scan their baggage.
“As such, the domestic terminal is getting congested with the growing passenger traffic. Between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., each passenger has to wait in the queue to first get their baggage scanned in the X-Ray machine and then once again at the check-in counter too. The whole terminal looks congested. Now, if these inline scanning machines come in, it certainly will ease congestion inside the terminal,” he added.
Soon, as part of the phase II modernisation work that is on, there are plans to install self-baggage drop machines too in both departure halls of the international and domestic terminals of Chennai airport.
