Banned notes fly out of pockets at city airport

After the government asked airlines to allow manual air tickets, the domestic terminal saw crowds of passengers wanting to book tickets using Rs 500/Rs 1,000 notes.

Meanwhile, however, the passengers preferred travelling through application-based aggregators rather than prepaid taxi services available in the airport.

One could see long queues at airline ticket booking counters as people lined up for booking tickets. The long queue in the Indigo airline counter at the domestic terminal saw people waiting for more than an hour, which also led to fights among themselves and with the counter staff. Chetan Kedia, one of those waiting in the queue said, “I have been standing in the line for one and a half hours. There were arguments as all the members of a family had blocked the line in order to purchase a huge number of airline tickets.” The airport however saw a drop in passengers using prepaid taxis at the terminal. The authority, though, was accepting payments via debit and credit cards.

Akbar Travels has six counters in terminal 2 (T2, the International terminal). While Thomas Cook and Cox and Kings said that they hadn’t seen any impact due to discontinuation of the notes among their foreign tourists, a spokesperson of Akbar Travels said, “We had cash in denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes only, due to which we had to close down our counters at the terminal.” Anil Khandelwal, chief financial officer of Cox and Kings, said most of the foreigners prefer using credit and Forex cards.

The passengers in T2 however seemed to be confused and puzzled on Wednesday, especially the NRIs as they were left clueless. “The travelling people had no idea about this step and hence were puzzled after landing in the city,” explained an airport official.