As many as 120 bomb hoax call alerts were made across 20 airports in India over the last three years, according to this reply by Jayant Sinha, minister of state in the ministry of civil aviation, to the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) on July 27, 2017.

In terms of security, as many as 26 airports in India are categorised as hyper-sensitive and 56 as sensitive.

Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport reported the most (40/120 or 33%) hoax call alerts over the last three years. Delhi was followed by Mumbai (17) and Bengaluru (14), accounting for 59% of all bomb hoax call alerts.

Viznomic

Source: Lok Sabha

Hoax calls cause loss to airlines in terms of money and time as a result of delay in departure, alternate arrangements to ferry passengers and credibility of the airlines, Sinha said in his reply.

(Mallapur is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

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Chaitanya Mallapur

    Chaitanya has a masters degree in politics from the University of Mumbai and a bachelor's degree in computer science. His areas of interest are foreign policy and security studies. He has also worked with ET NOW, a business news channel, as an assistant producer in the digital team.