Chaos erupted at Kolkata's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport over the weekend as a cascade of flight cancellations and delays by budget carrier IndiGo left hundreds of passengers stranded and separated from their luggage. The situation grew so dire that personnel from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) had to step in to manage the swelling crowds and restore a semblance of order.
CISF Intervenes to Manage Passenger Frenzy
The crisis came to a head on Saturday when distressed passengers, many of whom had spent two full days without their checked-in baggage, overwhelmed the airline's ground staff. With little help forthcoming from the overstretched IndiGo team, tensions ran high. CISF officers swiftly moved to reorganize the chaotic scenes near Gate 3C of the terminal.
To prevent further logjams, the security personnel implemented a crucial segregation strategy. They separated passengers who had flight-related queries from those desperately searching for missing luggage. The latter group was then escorted in controlled batches of ten to a designated section in the arrival hall.
There, a disheartening sight awaited them: piles of unclaimed bags dumped by ground staff. Passengers were permitted to identify their belongings and reclaim them after completing proper entry and verification procedures. In a significant move, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of CISF, Ajay Kumar, deployed a senior, unarmed CISF officer specifically to assist flyers when airline staff were unavailable.
Passenger Ordeals: Families Separated, Weddings Attended in Travel Clothes
The human cost of the operational meltdown was severe and widespread. Among those caught in the turmoil was Anindita Banerjee, 30. Her journey from Texas to Kolkata, via Delhi, turned into a nightmare when her IndiGo flight was cancelled. She and her husband were rebooked on separate routes—she via Itanagar and he via Guwahati.
While Banerjee reached Kolkata late on Thursday, her husband's flight from Delhi was cancelled after check-in, leaving him stranded. To compound their misery, both their 25kg checked-in bags vanished. "I was told my luggage would reach Kolkata on Friday, but it never did," she lamented on Saturday after a two-day wait at her Gariahat home. Her husband in Delhi was shown a photograph of his bag by an airline staffer, but its current location remained a mystery.
Dozens of other passengers reported similar harrowing experiences. Karanveer Grewal, 28, arrived from Delhi for a wedding but spent his time scouring a designated luggage area inside the airport without success. "I will have to return to Delhi on Sunday. I don't know how I will get back my luggage now," he said.
Perhaps one of the most telling accounts came from Ahmedabad resident Tilak Ganguly, whose family arrived from Bengaluru. The entire family was forced to attend wedding functions in the same clothes they wore during their flight journey. They eventually had to return home with no clarity on when, or if, their bags would ever be recovered.
Root of the Chaos: Last-Minute Cancellations and Baggage Handling Failures
Airport officials pinpointed the root cause of the confusion to a series of last-minute flight cancellations. This triggered a domino effect in baggage handling. Luggage that had already been loaded onto aircraft had to be offloaded repeatedly. Furthermore, some passengers, frustrated by extensive delays, abandoned their travel plans, necessitating the removal of their bags from the aircraft holds.
This series of ad-hoc decisions led to a complete breakdown in the tracking and reconciliation of passenger baggage, resulting in the mountain of unclaimed luggage and countless distressed travelers. The incident highlights the vulnerability of airport systems to sudden operational disruptions and the critical need for robust passenger communication and baggage management protocols during crises.
