Passenger harassment and sufferings at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) have not stopped as yet, allege both incoming and outgoing passengers.
HSIA deals with 80 percent of the country's air traffic as most people like to use this airport. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina repeatedly has said, the government would not tolerate any harassment of passengers, especially expatriate Bangladeshis at the country’s airports.
As per the prime minister’s order and in the face of massive drive by mobile courts, harassment and various crimes earlier declined significantly at all the country’s airports, including HSIA.. But, incidents of harassment and crimes are again taking place at the airport in recent times. According to HISA information, on an average 130 flights are being operated daily at the airport, but there are only eight boarding bridges, which is very insufficient. As a result, the authority concerned cannot provide all boarding bridges to all aircraft, resulting in them using the bay area.
This not only takes long time, but also brings suffering to the elder and physically challenged passengers who are unable to use stairs. Even wheelchairs are inadequate for them. On the other hand, the immigration facility is also not passenger friendly, server and computer at the immigration center are not modernized, while passengers are also unable to take trolley outside the airport building.
Incoming passengers specially those who work in different foreign countries including Middle East, Europe, USA, Canada and Australia are being humiliated in many ways due to luggage loss and misbehavior by a section of officials. “Like me most passengers will have to wait for long to get out of the airport with our luggage and other valuables due to the very poor ground handling. Besides, the authorities concerned fail to handle the rush when two or three aircraft land at the same time, due to its inadequate logistic support, manpower and modern equipment,” Mohammad Aminul Haque, a Bangladesh expatriate working in the Middle East said.
“While over 130 aircraft land and take off at HSIA, it has insufficient boarding bridges. As a result, the HSIA fails to provide boarding bridges to most of the aircraft,” an official of HSIA said. Preferring not to be named, he said, as a result the passengers are forced to land in the Bay area leading to a serious backlog and sufferings of the passengers.
The passengers alleged that they have to experience serious sufferings and face difficulties due to chaotic situation at HSIA. As the airport authority fails to handle the situation, such chaos creates long queues at check-in desks, immigration desks and customs at the airport. Apart from these, security arraignments at HSIA have not been made satisfactory as yet, causing grave concern to the high command of the government.
“The fact is, that with all the positive developments in the country the world has been witnessing in the last few years, it is all the more regrettable that the reality for our national flag carrier Biman and activities of civil aviation authority remain unchanged, and continue to be extremely serious,” a highly placed source said on Friday.
When Bangladesh is marching towards becoming a developed country, and has witnessed considerable progress in the past 10 years in almost all sectors under the dynamic and farsighted leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, civil aviation sector is still lagging behind due mainly to mismanagement, irregularities and corruption.
As the popular saying goes 'first impression is the last impression,' when foreigners go to another country, they can read the culture, norms and values etc, from its airport management system. Many foreigners have been visiting Bangladesh for many important purposes specially doing business here. Besides, foreign tourists are also coming to Bangladesh.
And they continue to praise Bangladesh highly for the tremendous development work here and are very interested to invest in the country in diverse sectors. But the airport which started its journey since 1980, still remains as it was. Despite the rising demand of the airways, facilities in luggage handling, immigration checking point, parking bay have not increases.
In this very situation, the authority concerned has taken initiative to construct third terminal at the airport which will increase its passenger handling capacity to two crore yearly, while its cargo handling capacity will rise to 0.5 million tonnes. The construction work of the new terminal will be completed at an estimated cost of Tk 13,610.46 crore under the financial assistance of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). and Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB).
Sources said, the expansion includes construction of the third passenger terminal building known as Terminal 3, as well as a 5,900 square meter VVIP complex, 41,200 square meter cargo complex and multi-level car parking building with tunnel.
