【2008 Archives】

India008 Archivesfinally doing something about making flying less of a hassle for its commuters by fixing a problem that is unheard of elsewhere in the world.

Starting today, people at seven of India’s airports don’t have to stand in queues to get their hand baggage stamped by security officials.

A week long trial began today at airports in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, where passengers will not have to get their baggages stamped.

The trial is only available to people taking domestic flights. Depending on the success of the ongoing trial, the official says they will look explore giving people the option to avoid getting their boarding pass stamped as well.

The move could be surprising for many who live outside India, where such security practices aren’t exercised. In India, however, this has been the norm since 1992. Before standing in the security check queue passengers had to attach a paper security tag to their carry-on bags, which were stamped manually by security personnel after the bags were put through the scanner.

As if spending a few minutes to get your baggage stamped wasn’t enough, passengers were required to go through the entire security checkup process if they or the security officially missed to add a tag to the baggage. Unsurprisingly, many have missed their flights because of this over the years.

However, passengers will still have to get their boarding passes stamped after the security check, a process which has ensured electronic boarding passes are not valid at Indian airports.

“We have taken a conscious decision of doing away with the process of stamping handbag tags from Thursday. We have this system of stamping boarding pass and hand baggages (since 1992). This is an unique system only in India,” OP Singh, the director general of CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) told reporters.

India is expected to become the third largest aviation market in the world by 2020.