The National Society for Human Rights has slammed facilities and services at the north terminal at Jeddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport.
In a report to be sent to the airport authorities, it specifically mentions long delays in fingerprinting passengers arriving to work in the Kingdom and in giving pilgrims their passports back, congestion in the lounges, bad conditions at the health control center, insufficient water coolers and rest rooms for travelers, the absence of good restaurants and a lack of seating, especially for the old and the disabled.
This condemnation comes as no surprise to anyone who knows the north terminal, which is used by foreign airlines. And frankly the south terminal, used by Saudi Arabian Airlines, is no better. Regular passengers could write a forest of further complaints: Staff who are unhelpful, even aggressive; chaotic queues in the arrival hall; staff arbitrarily dispatching passengers to one immigration counter then to another; expatriates, especially from Asia or Africa, treated with disdain if not contempt; missing luggage; display screens with no flight information or the wrong information. It is not unknown even for buses transporting passengers from terminal to aircraft to head to the wrong plane. The last thing Jeddah airport can claim to be is user-friendly. When something goes wrong or a flight is delayed, there are no explanations, no communication with the passengers. Quite simply, Jeddah airport puts Saudi Arabia to shame. It is the principal gateway to the Kingdom, certainly for pilgrims who constitute the largest single group of passengers, but it is second rate even by the standards of airports in many Third World countries.
It would be comforting to think that the problems will vanish once the new Jeddah airport buildings are complete and open for business. Probably that is the way the airport authorities see it. Certainly, there should not be any further complaints about the number of rest rooms or seating for the disabled. That is a design issue. If such problems still exist, then it will be because of very incompetent design.
But building a new terminal, no matter how superb it looks, is not going to improve matter if the attitudes of people working there do not change. It is rather like expecting education to improve by building new schools but not increasing the number and quality of teachers. Walls do not teach students; it is teachers who do that. So it is with Jeddah airport. If attitudes to passengers remain the same, the new airport will be just as unpleasant an experience as the present one. There will be the same queues of pilgrims not knowing where to go and no one willing to help them, the same blank display screens because no one can be bothered to update them, the same disdain toward expatriate workers arriving from Asia and Africa. Staff at the airport have to have far greater respect for passengers. After all, it is the passengers who ultimately pay their wages. The only way to ensure a change in attitudes is through training and directives from above. The responsibility lies with the management -- of airport and the airlines.
Jeddah airport need not be the uncomfortable experience it is. Airports elsewhere in the Kingdom are not. Ultimately it is poor management that makes it so. That is where change needs to start.
© Arab News 2010
