Govt receives 462 complaints from air passengers last year:Min

The government has received a total of 462 complaints from air passengers regarding issues such as poor service standards, hygiene and negligence of duties at country's various airports last year, the Lok Sabha was informed today.
Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma said in a written reply that the highest number of complaints (60) were received at Ahmedabad airport, followed by Ranchi (37) and Rajkot (27) among the 48 domestic airports during the period between January-December 2014.
Improvement in standard of service and hygiene at airports is a continuous process and Airports Authority of India and private airport operators have taken necessary steps to improve the professional standards at the airports, Sharma said in reply to another question.

Airport Service Quality Survey and Customer Satisfaction Index Survey are carried out at airports to assess the service quality for further improvement, the minister said.
Sharma also said AAI has put in mechanism of forming committee at the airports for instituting a system of internal checks of cleanliness standards under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
Besides, there is also an inbuilt stipulation to the joint venture airports under the operations, management and development (OMD) agreement to maintain complaint register in both physical and electronic format to take appropriate action on the complaints within 30 days.

Tariff regulator Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) also monitors the performance standards against the services provided at the major domestic airports, the minister informed.

He also said weighted average score of ASQ (Airport Service Quality) 11 domestic airports has continuously improved from 4.14 in the January-March period of the last year to 4.35 in the last quarter of 2014 on 5-point scale against world average of 4.04 and 4.11 respectively.
Sharma also informed the House that Kolkata airport has been declared as the best improved airport in Asia Pacific region by the Airport Council of India for two consecutive years (2013 and 2014).