Air passengers who regularly use Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka city often allege that they face harassment, mismanagement and misconduct by its staff on a regular basis. The service the airport offers can in no way be called up to the mark. Most passengers have to wait for long to get out of the airport with their luggage and other valuables due to very poor ground handling. Loss of luggage is a common affair in this airport. Besides, the airport authorities fail to handle the rush. When two or three aircrafts land at the same time, they become helpless as the airport lacks adequate logistic support, manpower and modern equipment.
International airports around the world have bright lighting and cleanliness is their topmost priority, maintained round the clock. In our case, airport washrooms are unhygienic and sometimes completely unusable. The parking areas' lighting is not sufficient to identify waiting vehicles. One of the major issues of this airport is mosquito menace. Though Bangladesh is marching forward to become a middle-income country, its civil aviation sector is still lagging behind mainly due to mismanagement, irregularities and corruption. The authorities concerned should immediately take steps to improve the standards of the existing facilities at the airport and make its third terminal that has been inaugurated recently operational as soon as possible.
Ashikujaman Syed,
Foreign Service Officer,
Anhui Haikang Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd,
Anqing, China,
syedashikujaman@yahoo.com