Only those flyers with cabin baggage will be allowed to travel on Mumbai's Colaba-Bandra-Seepz metro to and from the domestic and international airport terminals. Other fliers with larger bags will have to continue to rely on taxi services, said Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) sources.
Unlike the New Delhi and Shivaji Stadium metro stations, where passengers of Air India and Jet Airways can check in their luggage to travel from the airport with minimum hassle, Mumbai's Colaba-Bandra-Seepz metro will not provide this facility despite it connecting six of the city's business districts — Cuffe Parade, Colaba, Bandra Kurla Complex, MIDC, Worli and SEEPZ. The 33.5 km-long corridor with 27 stations will also connect 30 educational institutes and 30 recreational facilities.
"Having a dedicated section within the metro rake for carrying containers with passenger luggage needs more time for the services to halt at the station. Usually Airport Express metro lines have such a facility. Metro 3 is not an Airport Express line," said a Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) official.
Explaining the difference between the Airport Express corridor, vis-a-vis usual metro lines, the official said stations are spread across a kilometre for the Airport Express, and have higher train speeds with lesser frequency of services.
Whereas, for city metro routes, the stations are planned after every kilometre along with a shorter headway.
"The Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ metro line has been designed for a headway of 90 seconds, but during rush hour, our plan is to have metro services every 120 seconds," said another MMRC official.
Therefore, having a luggage check-in facility is not feasible as it will disrupt services ferrying passengers to and from their places of work. This apart, having a dedicated space inside the metro coach also tends to reduce the carrying capacity of each metro.
Also, those flyers with additional pieces of luggage, but of larger dimensions, may not clear security at the metro. Security scanners installed at the metro station entrances have size limitations.
As a result, larger bags will not be able to pass through scanners, thereby posing a roadblock for fliers who choose to take the metro to reach the airport.
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