Where time is money and a white elephant is made serviceable
Differentiated levels of service may seem unequal at any facility, including Delhi's international airport, but people pay more for a reason. The decision by the bureau of immigration to end separate counters, which led to much shorter queues, for business and first class passengers is being hailed by some. It should not be. The simple reason being that countries should treat high net worth individuals, who pay huge extra amounts for premier class travel, differently without letting pseudo morality get in the way of good business as the fact is that these individuals are usually the most influential in driving economic and policy decisions, investment et.al,. Especially so, because the bureau of immigration decision will not impact judges, serving members of legislatures and bureaucrats since they usually have official or diplomatic passports and there is still a special queue for them any way. India was not unique in having a separate queue for high-value customers.
At airports across the world business and first class passengers, along with frequent flyers, have separate fast-track queues for check-in, immigration and security. While some countries have stopped separate queues for immigration they have done so by bolstering their immigration counters so that queues get shorter for everybody. The crisis that led to this decision in India was undeniably caused because of the serpentine queues forming in front of immigration desks at Delhi's international airport in the past few weeks.That is a result of the failure of the airport and immigration authorities in augmenting capacity rather than the existence of a dedicated line for premium class passengers. Travellers flying into and out of India have grown exponentially over the past few years and airlines are flying large Airbus A380 aircraft into the country. These large planes often carry 75-80 premium class passengers, so to argue that this decision will impact very few people isn't valid argument.
Another development, however, is worth commending. Airport authorities have finally managed to get their unutilised Terminal 2 that was threatening to become a white elephant up and running again, albeit with only one airline -- Go Air -- using it as starters. This is a welcome move because traffic load at the existing terminals at Delhi, which is India's largest airport by far, was heading towards a crisis. However with IndiGo and SpiceJet refusing to shift to Terminal 2 for the valid reason that it would lead to passenger confusion, it might be a better idea for the Delhi Airport authorities to make Terminal 2 the terminal for low-cost international travel. It isn't just Indian low-cost airlines that have seen their international routes grow; India is served by tens of Asian low-cost carriers too. The old international terminal still has facilities for immigration which can be used. This would kill the proverbial two birds with one stone.