Recently I went through a painful experience at King Abdul Aziz International Airport’s North Terminal which serves foreign airlines. Judging from what all of us experienced that day, I still wonder if the civil aviation authority is indeed aware of the suffering and inconvenience the passengers using that terminal are subjected to.
I arrived with my family at the terminal three hours before the departure of my flight and beheld a shocking scene outside. The place was so packed with passengers and their friends that the airport officials closed all entries into the terminal building. My family and I had to wait so we could go inside. Families found themselves split into two groups: the lucky ones who managed to get inside and the unlucky ones who waited outside in the scorching heat and humidity. After waiting outside for a full hour, my family and I finally managed to get in — thirsty, near dehydration and exhausted. What must the situation have been for the old, the sick and the weak, especially elderly men and women and young children.
We inched our way forward in the teeming mass of humanity, trying to pay no attention to the pushing and shouting of frustrated passengers and got one of our suitcases in the door. Seeing how exhausted we were, a kind man volunteered to help us push the second in as well. Once inside, we found ourselves in a long queue waiting to reach the check-in counter. At that moment I gave a sigh of relief, although we were still a very long way from the departure gate, let alone on the actual aircraft. The worst of my trials were over but I felt sympathy for the many who were still outside in the blazing sun, high humidity and temperatures of nearly 40 degrees Celsius.
The inconvenience passengers regularly suffer at the airport in Jeddah has nothing to do with the security measures adopted at airports all over the world. The chaos is the result of bad design, bad organization and the inability to handle the situation of an airport regularly operating far beyond its capacity. If this is how things are these days, what is the terminal like in Ramadan and Haj when millions of Muslim pilgrims from all over the world converge on the Kingdom — with Jeddah’s outdated, overstretched airport being the main entry to the two holy cities of Makkah and Madinah.
Had the airport officials ever experienced the same suffering that ordinary passengers endure, something would have been done and we would never see such terrible scenes at any of our airports. What is happening at the North Terminal is purely and simply a disgrace. It damages the Kingdom’s reputation, and when things get this bad, urgent action must be taken.
