Hundreds of passengers flying out of the city on Saturday and Sunday did not receive their checked-in luggage at their destinations owing to glitches in the conveyor belts at the domestic terminal of the airport, sources said.

The problem was initially confined to the baggage belt at Portal C, from where IndiGo operates. Later, other portals were also hit. However, other airlines were not affected, airport sources said.

According to sources, more than 150 pieces of checked-in luggage could not be loaded on flights on Saturday. The number was less than 100 on Sunday.

Airport officials said the baggage belt at Portal C, which carries checked-in luggage from the departure level to the basement of the terminal building, had been developing intermittent snags since Saturday afternoon. The glitches continued until Sunday evening.

The belts are equipped with an in-line X-ray system for scanning luggage.

“The in-line X-ray could not be used because of the snags. The X-ray of checked-in luggage had to be done manually using standalone machines,” said an official.

There are three standalone X-ray machines in the domestic section of the airport.

“Since the luggage could not be moved from the departure level to the basement through the belt, it had to be carried manually,” the official said.

From the basement, the luggage is loaded onto aircraft.

Due to the belt problem, some flights were delayed, while many pieces of luggage were left behind, sources said.

When the baggage belt at Portal C stopped functioning, IndiGo’s check-in operations were shifted to portals A and B, officials said.

However, problems soon developed on those belts as well.

“The issues appear to have been caused by the accumulation of too many pieces of baggage on the belts, which affected the functioning of the sensors,” said a senior airport official. “The problem is being sorted out.”

According to the official, delays in the departure of several flights due to fog in north India had caused the over accumulation of luggage.

“This resulted in a large number of bags being transferred to the basement at the same time,” the official said.

Airport sources said the bags were being sent to their destinations on subsequent flights.

IndiGo faced a major luggage crisis in early December when around 3,500 flights were cancelled across the airline’s network.

Metro had reported how many fliers did not receive their luggage for days. Passengers would come to the airport to identify and take their luggage.

“All the missing luggage has been delivered to passengers,” said sources in the
airline.