The chaos at Delhi Airport’s Terminal 3 has seemingly landed in Mumbai now. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in the city saw a huge rush of passengers at the immigration counters for international arrivals on Tuesday with hundreds of passengers having to wait three to four hours in the queue.
Several passengers took to Twitter to share their ordeal, posting photos and videos of the long queues. Videos of passengers cheering when a person manages to make through the line have also emerged. “Escape from Alcatraz. Passengers cheering for every person who escapes immigration. What have we reduced ourselves to,” a Twitter user wrote while sharing a video of the long queue on Tuesday.
Escape from Alcatraz. Passengers cheering for every person who escapes immigration. What have we reduced ourselves to @CSMIA_Official @PMOIndia @HMOIndia pic.twitter.com/w99AbX10GS— Sudhir Shenoy (@ssudhir9524) December 20, 2022
Sharing a video of passengers applauding and cheering after a person went through, another Twitter user wrote, “Mumbai airport immigration nightmare. People actually cheering when a single person goes through. Some have been waiting for 4-5 hours.”
Mumbai airport immigration nightmare. People actually cheering when a single person goes through. Some have been waiting for 4-5 hours. Head of airport immigration #rashidsiddiqui rude and unconcerned. #mumbairportdisaster @CSMIA_Official @ndtv @timesnow #firerashidsiddiqui pic.twitter.com/agXPz7cidK— Nymrata Advani (@nymadvani) December 20, 2022
Passengers said that the airport had 24 to 30 immigration counters in the international arrival lounge, but several of them were empty, leading to long hours for clearances, as per a report by Hindustan Times. The international arrivals have to go through a biometric identification system but some of the scanners were generating errors, forcing them to re-scan several times.
“T2 Terminal Mumbai Int Airport Arrivals immigration had 24-30 counters in operation with the scanning issues on Monday night Tuesday morning. The passengers waited 3-4 hours to clear immigration then to collect abandoned baggage & clear customs. Why?” a passenger at arrivals said.
Tagging Union Aviation Minister JM Scindia, Twitter user Amit Saraswat wrote, “@JM_Scindia sad state of affairs at Mumbai airport. Immigration is taking around 4 hours. There is complete chaos and no one seems to be having any clue of what’s going on. @CSMIA_Official”
Mumbai airport officials reacted to the developments saying immigration and customs are central agencies and they cannot interfere in allocation of personnel if passenger volume increased, as per Hindustan Times.
A similar rush was seen at immigration counters for arrivals over the weekend. A passenger shared a video of a massive crowd at the airport’s immigration counters at 3 AM on December 16. Another user, @DTheIndian wrote, “This is madness at Mumbai International Airport. My daughter with my granddaughter is in the immigration que and in the last one hour only 1 family is cleared.”
Immigration counters at Mumbai airport time 3 AM.@JM_Scindia @mumbaimirror @aajtak @ndtv @dna @PMOIndia @PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/k3JoMzQRS7— Pratik Trivedi (@pratiktriv) December 15, 2022
As peak holiday season approaches, December witnesses a huge surge in domestic and international passenger volumes, and after lifting of pandemic restrictions, the volume of international passengers visiting India has increased substantially, said the Hindustan Times.
On December 10, when Mumbai airport recorded its highest passenger footfall in a single day at 1,50,988, the domestic passenger volume had increased by 26 per cent, as per HT, while the international passenger volume had increased 140 per cent compared to the same day in 2021.
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