Zia Int'l Airport: Adventure of a lifetime

My flight from London arrived at the same time as some others from Middle East. Already airborne for more than 10 hours, I was looking to complete the formalities quickly. In the end my checkout time was close to 3 hours and in that time my flight had re-fuelled, boarded passengers and taken off again.

I understand the mass of incoming passengers didn't help. But I couldn't understand some of the procedures that contributed to the delay. Firstly, inexplicably, the officials asked everyone to re-fill the immigration cards in Bangla instead of English. There was a mad scramble for new cards as everyone had filled theirs in English. Then of course every single person started filling in the forms ONLY once they reached the desk. Why they could not be sent to the back of the line while they had already filled in theirs, is a mystery.

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Seeing the delay I made my way over to a counter that said foreign visa. When I presented my passport, the official told me that the sign "wasn't correct" and that this was a "dead" booth. In the 40 seconds it took for this conversation, there were another 50 people who piled up, so I had to go back to the end of the line. So an incorrect sign delayed my check out time by an hour.

And in all that commotion, one of the passengers collapsed in the heat. Didn't I mention the air-conditioner wasn't on? Instead of bringing in a doctor as his friends were demanding, in walked an armed guard to prod the fellow back to consciousness. After an interminable 15 minutes of this futile exercise, a peon rushed in with a half-decimated leaking "badna" and started splashing water on his face. If that didn't help, what didn't help either were the rest of the passengers clambering over him to get ahead in the line. All this, under the watchful eye of the official continuing to zealously track down people who still had their forms in English. Astonishing commitment!

Once my papers were duly sealed, I found out that only one of the conveyor belts was working. So three flights and 1 belt the equation just didn't look right. If I was apprehensive about when my luggage would arrive, I really shouldn't have been. That's because there were no trolleys so even if my luggage arrived I wouldn't be able to trot off with my 30kg bags. Which is what another 50 people were just then figuring out. So the luggage started piling up next to the conveyor belt and pretty soon the inevitable tussle started. In the end I had to queue up at the gate and depend on luck to grab a trolley from passengers leaving the terminal.

Finally luggage safely tucked in, I laboured my way, following the exit signs. But of course I couldn't locate my patient parents waiting to receive me. Thankfully there was no glitch with my GSM and after a frantic conversation found out that this exit, like in the Immigration counter also had misplaced signboards so that I had ended up at the wrong end of the airport.

Needless to say that once I got out even the exorbitant 200 taka taxi fare to take me from the gate to the parking place seemed a fair price to pay rather than lugging my suitcases up the ramp and navigating between speeding cars. Made all the more confusing by the constant blaring of the guard's whistle. I realise that their job is to keep the crowd moving, but it's not too much to ask for a minute to get one's bearing, is it? Might even ease the flow of traffic as there would be less number of confused passengers running hither and thither to find their ride.

Misplaced signs, faulty belts, ill placed parking, dysfunctional A/C, shortage of trolleys, puzzling rules for immigration forms. Not rocket science to address these issues, but definitely would make a world of difference.

Aziz Mallick is a senior analyst, corporate finance.