Hate flight delays? Avoid this to make your & everyone else's life easier at the airport

Many people are afraid of getting delayed at the airport or missing the flight, especially in the holiday season when airports are crowded. While all such situations cannot be predicted or prevented, one precaution can root out a frequent cause of delays—packing your bags carefully.

A lot of people are not aware that a prohibited object in your check-in baggage can create chaos at the airport. It can prompt the security staff to isolate your bag, manually examine it and call you back to remove that object from your bag even if you have boarded and ready to fly. Now imagine the chaos and delay if dozens of people in your flight have such objects in their baggage. And if there's already the holiday rush, it can mean getting stuck at airport for hours together.

This is what happened at Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Thursday. Prohibited objects in check-in baggage of a large number of passengers led to long queues and flight delays.


The airport experienced increased level of dangerous goods, particularly power banks and lighters, in luggage, according the Delhi International Airport Limited. The incident rate was 30% higher than average. It impacted baggage handling due to the manual reconciliation of the suspect baggage.

Make sure you don't pack power banks in your check-in baggage. Some times the scan of a power bank resembles an improvised explosive device (IED), alerting the security. Resolving such a situation can take a long time, delaying loading of baggage on the flight. Besides power banks, lighters too are prohibited in check-in baggage.

Prohibited items in your hand baggage too can lead to delays because security personnel have to manually check and remove these items. Prohibited items most commonly packed in hand baggage are scissors, lighters, knives, razor blades, fire arms, toy guns, flammable liquid items, aerosol or gels.

If you pack right, you remove beforehand one of the major causes of delays at airports.