City airport’s website fails to fly high -

City airport’s website fails to fly high -

The Times Of India

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:28.10.2020

The city airport is yet to have a good website though there is a demand from people to know about Covid-19 restrictions and protocols, espcially at a time when states have started to change the screening and quarantine procedure for international and domestic passengers.

The existing website does not have information on flight schedules, details of health screening of passengers, quarantine rules. Instead it has only basic information about the airport.

The home page of Chennai airport's website that is run by Airports Authority of India shows in three boxes - Latest News, Tourist Places and Contact for advertisement. Closure of retirning rooms at the airport from February 3 and caution against employment fraud are shown under latest news.

In contrast, the website of Mumbai airport has a slide show detailing advisory for passengers, instructions for those repatriated to India, information for international arriving passengers, details of Covid-19 tests and others. There are also tabs to book an RT-PCR test at the airport's lab. Flight schedules are also posted. Similar is the case with websites of Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi and Kochi.

Sources said after a lot of complaints about the website, AAI improved its social media presence. AAI posts daily updates on flight schedules, quarantine guidelines, test protocols on its Twitter handle. However, the page gets a lot of comments and queries from passengers because most of the tweets get drowned when fresh tweets or retweets are posted. There will be at least four to five comments under each of the posts asking for details on flights, Covid-19 quarantine rules, availability of testing facility at the airport, need for test certificates and others. "The website has been outdated and poorly designed for the last few years. The local officials are not able to do much because it is handled from Delhi," said an airline official. .

M K Ajith Kumar, spokesperson, South Indian MICE Association, said "An updated website absolutely essential for domestic travellers and international travellers. A business traveller from abroad may want to know the whether the airport has a meet and greet facility, connectivity to the city. The airport is well linked to a metro station. These details can be updated daily otherwise they fall prey to touts. Domestic passengers will be able to check Covid-19 protocols which keep changing from one state to another."