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The new terminal from where the first domestic flight took off on Wednesday and (below) the domestic departure lounge at the terminal
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The first domestic flight flew out of Calcutta airport’s new terminal on Wednesday.
GoAir was the first domestic airline to move to the integrated terminal, from where international flights have been operating since Monday.
“Since we were operating from the international terminal (in the old facility), we were the first to shift,” said an official of GoAir.
The airline operated five flights from the new terminal on Wednesday — to Port Blair, Bagdogra, Guwahati, Delhi and Ahmedabad.
“Domestic flights took off from the new terminal today. Other airlines will start shifting to the new facility from Thursday,” said B.P. Sharma, the airport director.
“IndiGo is scheduled to start operations from the new terminal tomorrow, followed by Jet Airways on Friday. Others will follow.”
IndiGo sent text messages to passengers on Wednesday, telling them that their flights would be taking off from the new terminal on Thursday.
Domestic flight operations at the new facility were scheduled to begin in phases from March 15 but the date was brought forward on demand as passengers were eager to use the new terminal.
Though operations went off smoothly on Day 1 with “no complaints from passengers and no delay of flights”, airport sources are keeping their fingers crossed about teething trouble once all airlines start operating from the new terminal.
The integrated capacity (international and domestic) of the new terminal is 20 million passengers a year, which works out to around 55,000 people daily. Only around thousand people availed themselves of the facility on Wednesday, the first time the new terminal handled both domestic and international flights.
Delhi’s Terminal 3 and Heathrow’s Terminal 5 had faced problems in baggage handling and check-in, both software-related issues, after full-fledged operations began. There had been a flood of cancellations and flight delays as the baggage handling system went haywire.
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