I did LHR-BOM-BLR last week on Virgin Atlantic (VS) connecting to a domestic Jet Airways (9W) flight. It was my first time into the new BOM international terminal and one had to wonder what thought-process went into designing it.

Most airports in the world actively seek to become hubs where airlines can easily connect passengers between flights. They do all they can to encourage smooth transfers, whether it is one terminal for all flights, fast connections between terminals, reducing queuing and stress points, etc.

BOM airport, ably assisted by Indian security/customs, decided to go the other way.

The entire sequence went like this:
- Exit at a gate very far from the passport control area
- Walk 15 mins at a good clip to get to passport control
- Force passengers to walk through duty-free immediately after that. That's right, at midnight, tired after a long flight, I need to shop for alcohol. On hindsight I should've.
- Collect bags and queue up in one of 4 scanners in green channel
- Turn left into a narrow corridor for domestic transfers to hand bags to Jet/Indigo/etc.
- Then go to a security checkpoint which had exactly 2 guys hand-scanning 100s of connecting pax. At an optimistic 30 sec/pax, that's a throughput of 240 pax per hour.
- After security join the massive queue for a bus to the domestic terminal. No airport employees in sight, one security guy standing around, one airline employee yelling alternately into a mobile or to the line "Ahmedabad", "Chennai" and such. *No* signage what-so-ever. One TV screen showed international arrivals, telling passengers which flights they just arrived on, and another screen showing departure times of domestic flights, their gates and status; thus increasing the waiting passengers' anxiety levels.
- After the queue stood still for 20 mins, a few dozen Ahmedabad pax were pulled from the line and whisked off.
- After another 15 mins, a secondary line formed and started moving. I asked which flights and was told Chennai/Kolkata/Bangalore. Rushed over to it, bottom off the steps another security guy checks your boarding pass just in case the 2 previous guys who checked it before and after security had missed it. One more queue.
- Get on a bus that proceeds in slow motion around the airport edge for 20 mins and drops you off at the domestic terminal baggage arrival area.
- The guy checking boarding passes into security insists that my Virgin issued boarding pass for the Jet flight *must* have the gate number on it or won't let me through. I said I can figure out my gate once I enter the waiting area, but that would be too traveller friendly for him. No cigar.
- So off I go the Jet check-in counters to have a Jet employee write 15 on my boarding pass and circle it. (Note to self, if doing this ever again, just write any number of the BP and circle it, no way the security guy knows.)
- Go back to the security area (queue now 3x the previous size).
- The BP is then checked and stamped into submission by security going in, the guy scanning me, the airline guy as I board the bus, and another airline guy as I climb the stairs. Side-note: Given it's 3am, and very few gates in use, why can't Jet use a regular jet-bridge?

No wonder DXB is the Indian traveller's most popular connection point.