Jan. 9: Passengers taking the Emirates flight to Dubai from Calcutta airport this morning were shocked to find the trolley rack outside the gate to the departure level empty when they arrived. They looked left, they looked right. Not a single trolley in sight. 

In those few minutes of mild panic — passengers, relatives, friends and drivers, all of them desperately searching for a trolley — the integrated terminal time-travelled almost four years back to the dark age of this state-run airport.

“I couldn’t believe what I saw. Many elderly people with large suitcases were struggling to pull them from the gate till their check-in counters, which is quite a distance,” recounted a relative of a passenger. “An elderly lady tripped and fell trying to drag two suitcases. A CISF jawan helped her to get up.” 

Several passengers and those who had come to see them off at the airport were spotted sprinting from outside Gate 3C, which is for domestic flights, till Gate 4B in search of a trolley. The rack there was empty too.

What’s behind the curious case of the missing trolleys? History. 

Calcutta airport’s trolley problem is a legacy that the integrated terminal hasn’t been able to shake off. Almost four years since the facility opened, passengers at both the departure and arrival levels are still likely to be reminded that a trolley is a precious thing.

Metro visited all the gates at the departure level at various times of day and found the airport’s trolley management system as inefficient as before. A couple of trolley racks were empty while the rest had two or three at any given time. 

In a state-run airport with a culture of trade unionism, trolley and other troubles possibly come with the territory. Backed by unions, the trolley retrievers are notorious for their lackadaisical attitude to work. They are supposed to retrieve trolleys from the check-in and departure areas and parking lots at regular intervals. But more often than not, trolleys lie scattered and the racks are likely to be empty just when a passenger needs a trolley.

Arriving passengers often don’t find trolleys near the conveyor belts from where they collect their check-in luggage.

Sometimes, trolley retrievers approach the unsuspecting ones and offer to carry their bags till the car park or taxi stand. The facade of helpfulness crumbles when it is time to extort.

The airport currently has 2,500 usable trolleys, far below the requirement of a facility that handles more than 13 million passengers annually. Airport director Atul Dixit said 3,000 more trolleys were being procured.

More than the shortage of trolleys, officials blamed “unionised” workers hired by contracted private agencies for the trolley mess,

A new contractor for trolley-handling operations doesn’t change anything because the 80-odd employees remain the same. “Many of them are old and unfit. The rest are shirkers. The owners of the agencies have no control over them,” said a senior official.

A couple of months ago, a new agency got the contract for trolley-handling operations. 

According to officials, this is the first time that the terms of contract require the agency to pay the workers directly. In earlier contracts, the arrangement was that the airport would pay the wages. 

At a recent meeting, airport officials told the agency to deploy its trolley retrievers at four locations. One group is supposed to be inside the arrival lounge and another outside, retrieving trolleys left by passengers. Ditto for the departure area .

But as Monday morning showed, trolley and trouble are inseparable.