What a real airport does

As a frequent traveller, one learns to appreciate the smallest of things during the travel itinerary. The real struggle during the journey is the time you leave your home/hotel for the airport until you reach the destination airport.

If you travel enough, you will know when to leave from home to ensure a smooth and timely check-in-process, followed by some time at a lounge until it’s time to board. Sometimes you travel to countries where you know the check-in services and immigration process will take longer than usual airports. Therefore, you plan in advance and allocate sufficient time. For such countries, the airports are almost always old, understaffed and outdated (in terms of equipment, IT and general training), so you know, to an extent, what exactly to expect.

Pakistan recently inaugurated its New Islamabad International Airport (NIIA) – a feat that was widely celebrated, given the decades of planning it took to ensure its completion. It doesn’t really matter which political party was driving this initiative as long as the capital now has a new airport open to the public for a more improved and customer-friendly experience as part of their travel.

Boasting high ceilings and showing off its shiny marble floors, the NIIA was received by travellers as a (much needed) blessing. We now have multiple functional conveyer belts against the backdrop of innovative truck-art. We now have cosy shops past the immigration point where we are free to purchase foods, beverages, and other travel-related accessories. We now have two fancy lounges – one of which is catered by Marriott Hotel.

Like most developed international airports, we have escalators (horizontal and vertical) to make the walk to the desired gates more accessible and time-friendly. We have access to other facilities such bus and car booking services, special care for senior citizens and also bank services, including ATMs and currency exchange. All in all, the NIIA portrays itself to be an airport which has aligned itself with international standards for the people of Pakistan, and more specifically for the Pakistan of Islamabad.

In reality, however, the NIIA proves to be more of a disappointment than an achievement. Coming back to my point regarding the travel itinerary: the air journey is one leg of the travel. The most important and time-consuming part of one’s travel starts at the airport. Necessarily, when a new airport is launched at this level, it dictates that the time spent checking-in and passing immigration before the flight is significantly facilitated and reduced. It dictates that effective security measures are (already) in place and that all personnel are well trained and equipped in order to expedite passengers checking-in. It dictates that rules are not broken and that staff members are able to handle passengers in a professional manner. It dictates that the concept of priority queues is introduced without having the need to ‘request’ someone to facilitate a simple check-in.

Unfortunately, during my recent travels to Pakistan, I have faced nothing but the most excruciatingly unpleasant experiences at our NIIA. Let’s begin. In order to enter the airport building, you must be ‘verified’ by security personnel who simply ask you where you are travelling, check your passport and browse through your ticket.

This means that even if you arrive at the airport three hours in advance of your flight, you will inevitably have to wait, at least, 30 minutes to enter the actual premises in order to start your check-in process. This is especially true of international flights departing after midnight as there are hundreds of people gathered to enter the airport. And why not? They all arrived on time, didn’t they? The incumbent government boasts tourism, visa facilitation and lesser security risks. Perhaps they also need to assess how they put these actions into practice. If Pakistani citizens are being agitated by this, I won’t even begin to consider how others feel.

The next step. You finally enter the building in a fight against time as you have the same number of people ahead of you now passing their baggage through the security scanners. Again, your patience is tested. I arrived on time. I have no protocol. I didn’t do anything that I was told not to. Why am I being put through this? There is no harm checking baggage through the security scanners, but why did I have to wait this long to get to the most basic point of my itinerary? My flight now boards in less than two hours.

Following this, we are required to proceed to the airline check-in counters. To my surprise, almost all the time, despite some airlines stating that there is a priority lane for their Privilege Club Members, the lane is just as slow as the rest of the lanes. In essence, I gain absolutely nothing from being a member or a priority customer. I am not sure if the airport or the airline is to blame or both, but this needs to be addressed. Even the most remote and underdeveloped airports understand the meaning of priority lanes – they move faster, process faster and prioritise! It’s very simple. When asked why this was the case, I was told that this is just the way it is. If I, as a priority passenger spent 20 minutes in line, I only wonder how much longer non-priority members spend on a normal basis.

Then comes the biggest challenge of the itinerary – the immigration process. There seems to be no concept of lanes. Just one massive queue. This is, by far, is the most frustrating leg of the process. You easily lose up to one hour standing in queue waiting for your turn before an immigration officer. Again, how this is allowed is hard to comprehend. Lack of management? Lack of training of immigration staff? General attitude on how things are done? Who knows?

Should anyone raise this as a matter of concern while in queue, there is always someone ready to videotape you and make you the next meme of Pakistan. So everyone is cautious, sceptical and frustrated. It’s not a good mix…at all.

As a result, you arrive at your desired gate with almost no time to sit and take a breath of relief. No time to have a cup of tea, call your family or grab a book to read from the shop. Thanks to the entire airport management, you get inside the plane anxious, annoyed and just bitter.

The NIIA, therefore, disappoints in terms of proving to be an airport providing ‘state of the art facilities’, as generously elaborated on their website. The idea is not to have a large airport. The idea is to have an airport which facilitates passengers to the extent that their travel becomes less of a burden and more of a positive experience. Perhaps the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority and related institutions need to exercise more efforts on people’s actual experiences; at present, the NIIA is running on auto-pilot.

The writer is a lawyer based inVienna.

Email: saadurrehman@hotmail.com