Hazrat Shahjalal Airport—a reality check

These days, my wife and I live in Dhaka and the USA and Canada where our two daughters live. We go away for a few months every year and then come back home. Every time we do so, I think about writing something in my columns about our experiences at the Hazrat Shahjalal Airport that has always been depressing and seems to deteriorate from one trip to the next. As it was in the days I was serving in the foreign service, coming home, in particular, has always been something that I cherished. Seeing the near and dear ones the closest of whom have always been at the airport to receive us, and the expectations of seeing the changes in the country have always made our hearts fluttered the moment the aircraft bringing us home touched the runway.
A lot has changed though. Many of those who used to receive us and see us off at the airport have since passed away. Then we no longer enjoy the facilities we did for a long time that I was a senior official at the Foreign Minister, the privilege of being received by someone from the Ministry's protocol and then taken to the VIP room where we waited as our luggage was collected and the passports stamped by the Immigration. And some of our close relatives were allowed to be in the VIP room as well.
We no longer enjoy the privileges of the VIP room that is a mystery though. Next door in India, foreign ministry officials like this writer who retired as a Secretary to the Government and an Ambassador in a Grade 1 Embassy are allowed to use the VIP room once given, life long.  In their retirement, they are also allowed to use their diplomatic passports and are given the other protocol assistances they enjoyed while in service. Other countries also extend similar facilities to their retired senior diplomats. For us, retired senior diplomats are allowed the use of the VIP room for three years and then the Foreign Ministry refuses to even acknowledge that they ever were an important part of the country's diplomatic service.
The loss of the VIP room nevertheless allows me these days to see many things that I never came across in my foreign ministry days. And what I have been seeing on the numerous occasions we have to use the Airport have been discouraging and depressing. An airport and a national one at that, is the gateway to the country for people visiting it. It gives the foreigners a glimpse of the state of affairs in the economy and the society. Therefore, it is a place that all nations showcase.
Unfortunately, we are an exception as a nation in showcasing our beloved national airport, Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. Instead of making attempts to showcase it, there seems to be competition among the numerous agencies that share the control of the airport to show it in a permanent state of deterioration.
Take for instance, what a passenger sees from his/her window as the aircraft comes from the runway towards the boarding bridge. The site is depressing. A few aircraft can be seen parked that does not say much about the traffic the airport handles. As for the airport itself, it looks anything but impressive. In fact, to the casual observer, there are definite signs of poverty stamped in the view of the airport from the view the passengers get from their aircraft windows.
Once parked and the passengers walk through the boarding bridge, the poor impression from the outside is significantly enhanced. There is a stench in the boarding bridge, enhanced if you are coming during the rainy season and visible dirt marks on the floor. Once in the passage leading to the immigration and baggage collection area, there are signs that the amalgam of authorities and agencies that control the Airport have tried some beautification but these efforts have outlived their usefulness and the passage, the area of the Immigration and the baggage claim area are in immediate need of a complete overhaul.
Once the Immigration was a major headache for both the incoming and outgoing passengers not because of the way the area was arranged and looked but because of the inordinate time that the Immigration officials took in stamping the passports using the computers. It is these days encouraging to see these officials both smart and efficient and the time that passengers had to stand and pray to get through Immigration is a matter of the past. There are still problems for passengers through Immigration but Immigration overseas, particularly in the western and so-called developed countries, are so rough and often uncivilised that Immigration at the Shahjalal Airport would have to deteriorate many times to compete with them.
The baggage claim area is where the passengers' faith in the Almighty for the believers is tested. It can take anything up to hours to find the baggage in that dimly lit baggage claim area. It is also here that the inquisitive passengers feel that there are so many pairs of eyes looking at them underlining the smuggling that goes in our beloved national airport and need to keep every single passenger under surveillance. Passengers stand before the conveyor belt in eager expectation that the next suitcase in the belt would be his/her only to be frustrated till fate would smile and he or she would find his/her baggage and feel like winning a lottery!
Once out of the airport terminal and walking towards the car parking area, what strikes the eyes is the hundreds of people that look at the passengers coming out like either they were looking into a zoo or they were some objects in the zoo kept separate with iron fences lest they harm the passengers. A Help Line assistant who helped me with my baggage told me that some company was given the contract through tender to allow those who come to the airport to receive passengers to get inside the airport terminal with payment of a fee but that due to problems with the police, the contract has not been working well. Thus these hundreds have to suffer in an inhuman manner the hot sun or drench in rain and there is no one that can figure out why. Why is it that a country soon to become a middle-income one cannot provide to those who go to the airport to see off or receive friends and relatives cannot be given an area that would shield them from the elements like citizens of a civilized country?
And the covered parking area is a misnomer to be called one. The building is dilapidated and at the point of entry, filthy and dirty. I arrived the other day and there were rains and I had to use the umbrella to get into the parking area as rain waters were falling inside the building. After all the hassle at the airport and the dirt and the filth in the covered parking area and the inordinate delay in collecting luggage, it took us over half an hour to get to the main road and once there, did not find any jam on either way of the airport road. So why the half-an-hour delay to get to the main road that should not take more than a few seconds?
That brings to the question that led to this  piece. To those in the government who are telling us how close we are to becoming a middle-income country, why does our airport tell us a different story as plain as water - that we are on the lower level of a developing country? They need to see what the passengers who do not use the VIP see day in and day out. If they were to step out of the VIP enclave into the other parts of the airport, they would see a poor developing country and not a middle-income country on way to becoming a developed one! For the sake of the great saint after whom the airport has been named, they need to break down the wall between the VIP enclave in the airport and take a reality check.
The writer is a former Ambassador.
serajul7@gmail.com