Bengaluru: Have the ills of the shambolic immigration at the US’ notorious Newark airport come to visit Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport?
Some 130 passengers who landed at KIA on Friday night came off a SriLankan Airlines flight expecting to whizz through the newly expanded immigration which boasts 12 counters, only to find the counters shut and the hall empty!
Flight UL 171, flying between Colombo-Bengaluru, touched down at exactly 8 pm and over the next ten minutes all the passengers, many of them, women and children had disembarked and were lined up at immigration.
Except, all the counters were shut and there was not a single officer in sight. “For the next 20 minutes passengers had no clue what was happening at the counters.
Unless you pass the immigration check points you have no seating arrangements or rest room facility. There were passengers who had booked taxis and some of them were about to catch their next connecting flights.
There were also passengers who had flown from UK to Colombo and they were made to wait more than 45 minutes without any counters open," said one angry passenger.
Another passenger said that the airline staff from SriLankan airlines expressed helplessness and said that all the formalities have been done from their side to inform the landing of the aircraft and proceeding of passengers towards the immigration centres.
"After waiting for 45 minutes an officer came running up, holding a bunch of keys and started opening the counters. The clearing of immigration took another half an hour causing major inconvenience to the passengers.
When we questioned the officers at the immigration counter, they said the keys had gone missing and hence it took time to find them and open the counters.
Another officer in the next counter said that the stamp which is required to be printed on the passengers' documents was missing hence the delay," the irate passenger said. Kempe Gowda International Airport has about 12 immigration counters.
Complaints of the long queues in front of immigration counters and the need for more counters to ease the rush have been pouring in, as KIA turns into a major international hub.
