Thaindian News

New Delhi, Sep 27 (IANS) In a bid to change its image after the official auditor criticised it for the quality of its service, national carrier Air India Tuesday started an unique check-in procedure whereby passengers without any baggage can collect their boarding passes from the airlines’ office in the national capital.

“Now passengers without check in baggage can collect their boarding pass from Air India office at Safdarjung airport between 8.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m. on all days,” said a senior airline official in the operations arm.

According to the official, the new scheme has been started to better the service for passengers who travel throughout the day for business purposes and then return.

“This will benefit all corporate and government officials who travel on daily basis and do not want to be hassled for standing in a queues for a very long time,” the official said.

The official further said that the schemes will also reduce the long ques at the check-in counters and would provide a hassle-free journey to most of the passengers and help in on-time performance of the carrier.

Last week, the company had achieved an on-time performance of nearly 93 percent for the month of Sep 1 to Sep 23.

“Air India achieved 93 percent on time operations (nationally) of its flights. And in the Delhi region, we achieved 96 percent on-time performance for the fifth time in September,” the official further said.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had, in a report released earlier this month, criticized the carrier on its service quality.

“Air India is no more a favoured airline for passengers. The services and criteria that benchmark a favoured and popular airline are absent in Air India,” the report said.