Dum Dum: The number of self-service check-in kiosks at the airport is being doubled to cut queues at the counters, although fliers in Calcutta will still have only 10 to choose from unlike in Mumbai where the terminal has 99 of them.

Automated self service is the gold standard in check-in convenience that airports across the world have long adopted. Bangalore has 40 kiosks, allowing as many passengers to check in at a time and print boarding passes. For baggage drop, there are separate counters.

The five kiosks currently in use at the city airport are not only inadequate for a terminal that handles about 18 million passengers annually, but also appear to be from a different era. The new ones will be better, officials promised.

"The new machines will be installed within a couple of months. We have got the approval from Delhi," airport director Atul Dixit said on Tuesday.

The five self-service kiosks are all in the domestic section of the integrated terminal. A kiosk in the international section has to have the additional feature of reading a passport, an airport official said.

International air traffic to and from Calcutta remains low compared to the other metros, but the number of flights on domestic routes have been increasing every year. On an average, about 425 flights are in operation each day. The current annual growth rate is nearly 18 per cent, raising the need for more self-service check-in kiosks.

"The number of manually operated counters cannot be increased. Automated kiosks are the only solution to congestion in the terminal and a sure-fire way to improve on-time performance of airlines," an official said.

While Mumbai International Airport Ltd is promoting self-service check-in in a big way, the kiosks in the integrated terminal are located where most passengers would have trouble spotting them.

A senior official of a domestic airline said the five kiosks should have been near the check-in counters rather than entry gates 3A and 3B of the arrival level. "Since we don't have inline baggage scanning in the domestic section yet, the first thing a passenger looks for is the X-ray machine and they turn left or right," he said.

Some airlines have deployed ground staff to guide passengers to the self-service check-in kiosks when there are long queues.