Mismanagement triggers chaos among passengers at new Islamabad Airport

ISLAMABAD: The much-awaited new Islamabad International Airport opened its doors to the public on Thursday after years of delay.

After the Inaugural ceremony attended by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi the airport became fully functional on Thursday 3rd May.

The new International Airport, 30 kilometers from the capital, is capable of serving nine million passengers per year and 50,000 metric tons of cargo.

But it seems like the airport lacks strong management as people witnessed chaos in the departure lounge where allegedly the luggage took three hours to come through the conveyor belt.

The incident apparently was filmed by an unnamed passenger who later posted it on Facebook with a caption: “New Islamabad Airport but same people. How change comes”

The post since then has gone viral and users from all over Pakistan have had a say in the matter, mostly blaming the passengers for behaving like madmen.

One user Nau Man wrote; “Regardless of what the circumstances were, you will never see this at JFK, Dubai, or UK airports for that matter? Regardless of being Pakistanis this will only happen in Pakistan. The same reason why, when an airplane is taxing after landing…this has nothing to do with pml, pti, mqm, it has to do with our nature as Pakistanis to think we “own” elements of our nationalism to a degree where we can act like animals.”

Juma Raz wrote Admin mentioned wrong details in the post. Passengers were so angry because they had to wait for 3 hours and no luggage showed up. They had children’s and females waiting with no place to sit. It was the worst experience. We came to Pakistan just for the Airport inauguration and this is what we got. The managers were all themselves complaining about the Airport Authorities

Other user blamed the management

“Bad administration I don’t think it’s an education issue. even educated people r in action… It’s a lack of administration…similar conditions happened in decent societies when administration s couldn’t deliver duties..”

Qamar Abbas wrote, “The CAA is a pathetic institution most of the baggage control systems do not work as yet, they have not hired the management team to look after and run these systems, yet they opened the airport just to please their political masters, the monkeys at the CAA need to be fired.”

Most people shared their dismay over the passengers’ behavior.

One wrote;

“Never saw this happening at Lahore or khi airport domestic or international where is the security staff …????”

Mudassar Inayat wrote; “After traveling Just two hours from Dubai to Islamabad how peoples are showing their madness, we haven’t seen these peoples behaving like this in Dubai they are following all the rules and regulations.Best way to handle them is stiff penalties”

Faisal Latif Sulehria wrote; ”Very sad to see misbehave of people, at least they should wait for luggage and not misuse the newly installed belts.”