Airports Authority of India has turned passenger service into a 24-day calendar. Yatri Seva Abhiyan 2026 runs from 17 September to 10 October at AAI fields, after last year’s single Yatri Seva Diwas. Pune’s director spelled out the method. Each day owns one piece of the journey. Cleanliness. Parking. Seating. Elderly and reduced-mobility arrivals. Women and children. AirSewa complaints. Security. Water. Digital services. Staff courtesy. The civil aviation minister is expected to walk unannounced into four airports before 10 October. Imphal sits inside that national instruction. Jammu has put its own name on it. Airport Director Devendar Yadav announced first-flyer help, a welcome programme, QR feedback, drop-off for passengers with reduced mobility, and a bus to the railway station and the general bus stand. Those are useful sentences. They are not yet a scorecard.
A campaign can hang roses and recitals in the hold area and still leave a first-time flyer lost at the belt. Imphal and Jammu are the right places to test that gap. Imphal is a lifeline airport. Highway closures after 2023 violence pushed more people onto aircraft. About 16 scheduled movements a day and roughly 3,000 passengers now move through a terminal that is already tight while a 22,000-square-metre integrated building crawls toward a December 2026 target. Jammu is a dual-use civil enclave with surge days, security layers and last-mile chaos that no folk dance repairs. A first-flyer desk matters there because many passengers are not frequent metro travellers. A railway bus matters because the terminal is not the destination. Courtesy matters when a bag is late and the next connection is a shared taxi, not another airline. The campaign language is Seva, Swachhata, Sahyog and Service with Smile. The operating language should be time, toilets, trolleys and tickets.
Accountability is a published list, not a closing ceremony. On 11 October both airports should put numbers on a public page. Queue time at entry, check-in and security at peak banks. Share of bags delivered inside 20 minutes. Washroom inspection scores before and after Swachhata Diwas. How many first-time flyers used the desk and how many still missed a flight. How many AirSewa and QR complaints were closed inside 48 hours, and how many were only logged. How often PRM and senior-citizen assistance arrived before the passenger asked twice. Whether the Jammu station bus ran to timetable and how many seats it carried. Whether Imphal’s incomplete new terminal is already leaking crowding into the old hall. Staff recognition on the last day is fine if the same staff still have a roster and a cleaning contract in November. Surprise ministerial visits only work if the metrics stay when the cameras leave. AAI already has ASQ surveys and AirSewa. The 24-day drive should be the period when those tools stop being internal and become a passenger document. Until Imphal and Jammu publish that document, Yatri Seva is a programme. It is not yet a service standard.