Passengers of at least three flights found the aerobridge gate leading to the airport shut at the new terminal.

More than 130 passengers of Air India’s New York-Delhi-Calcutta flight were stuck inside the aerobridge for 20 minutes on Wednesday before a CISF jawan allowed them in through the departure gate.

Soon after the flight landed at 10.40pm, the passengers found both the first-floor and second- floor exits of the aerobridge locked. The passengers kept going back and forth before a guard spotted them at the departure gate. Explanations were offered and they were allowed in.

Passengers of the 180-seater IndiGo flight, 6E-403 from Mumbai via Nagpur, went through a similar experience on Thursday. The stranded passengers banged on the gate but no one apparently heard them.

“We were surprised to find the entrance to the airport locked. Many passengers were feeling claustrophobic. After about 30 minutes we found an emergency exit at the other end of the aerobridge,” said Subhas Sircar, a senior executive in a private insurance firm based in Singapore, who was with his wife Sukhvinder.

Guards stopped them on the stairs but the passengers forced their way down and entered the airport from the tarmac.

More trouble awaited them at the luggage carousel. “We were asked to wait at conveyor belt nine but there was no sign of our luggage. We saw bags arriving on the next belt but the screen there flashed IndiGo flight from Goa while the one above belt nine was blank. One of us spotted our luggage on belt 10 and rushed to collect it,” Sircar said.

Passengers of an Air India flight from Mumbai found the gate to the terminal locked on Thursday. They returned to the aircraft and had to wait for 30 minutes before a stepladder was attached and they could get off the aircraft.

An airport official blamed miscommunication for the trouble.