Sufferings to continue at Dhaka airport
Passengers will continue to suffer at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport until next year as government officials said on Sunday that they were working to improve the poor management by employing additional manpower and installing services.
On Sunday, passengers at the international departure terminal were seen waiting in long queues to enter the airport building.
Many passengers were seen carrying their luggage on their head amid crisis of luggage trolley.
Huge crowds of passengers were also noticed at both inbound and outbound health desks.
Airport officials said that the government had talks with airline operators before suspending flights for eight hours at night for six months from December 10.
It was also decided to operate around 85 flights in 16 hours daily instead in 24 hours.
In addition, the airport officials said that they need to suspend passenger flights for two more hours a day until December 16 as the Bangladesh Air Force aircrafts were continuing their exercise for Victory Day parade.
The state minister for civil aviation and tourism, M Mahbub Ali, on Sunday hinted at further sufferings of passengers during the visit of Indian president Ram Nath Kovind in Bangladesh to attend Victory Day celebrations.
Kovind will pay a state visit from December 15 to 17, said India’s Ministry of External Affairs in a statement past week.
The state minister, however, regretted the mismanagement at HSIA and promised that they would take steps to improve services as faster as possible.
In the wake of poor passenger management service reported at the airport in past few days, the state minister visited the airport on Sunday, held a meeting with officials and spotted a couple of problems.
‘We have some failures,’ he told reporters at the airport flanked with senior officials of the ministry, the Civil Aviation Authority and Biman Bangladesh Airlines.
He said that there was a shortage of luggage trolley as about half of the trolleys broke down.
He, however, said that they had plans to import 2,500 trolleys soon.
Asked about the long queues, he advised the United Arab Emirates-bound passengers to reach airport eight hours before the scheduled flights as many passengers had recently missed flights due to delay at mandatory pre-departure RT PCR Covid19 test that is to be done three hours before their UAE bound flights.
Asked, HSIA executive director AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan said they would shortly install wall-mount information display for departure passengers to share information about the gate at the terminal set for their entry.
The state minister said Naoki Ito, the ambassador of Japan in Bangladesh, on Sunday assured that the third terminal would be completed by June 2023.
Mahbub Ali said that he also spoke to the home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, to make the immigration process faster.
Mahbub claimed that the number of passengers both at domestic and international routes has increased over the years that led to the congestion at the airport.
A monitoring committee was formed to ensure services, he added.
Zanendra Nath Sarker, additional secretary (Biman and Civil Aviation) of Civil Aviation and Tourism Ministry, said that usually 14,000 passengers used the airport, but recently the number crossed 21,000.
New Age
