Dismal state of luggage handling at HSIA

Clearing luggage at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) is notoriously slow and it can take hours for passengers to get their luggage. The issue has finally been acknowledged by the Civil Aviation Minister AKM Shahjahan at a meeting recently. We wonder if a push by the minister will help civil aviation authorities (CAAB) wake up and take notice of the terrible state of affairs that passengers must contend with. It is not only a case of delays, but theft of passengers' luggage has also been a rising phenomenon. The apparent lack of accountability of staff belonging to the national carrier which is presently responsible for ground handling at HSIA means that there is no real incentive to improve the quality of services including making the operation faster as in other international airports in the region.

There has been some talk of a new ground handling policy in the works that would allow for CAAB to call tenders to appoint private operators for ground handling services. This is indeed the need of the hour because an airport's ranking is linked to how good its operations are and given the fact that passengers have to wait for hours for their suitcases to travel from airplanes to the carousels, a little competition in this area would do HSIA and its passengers a world of good. We hope that CAAB prepares the policy as soon as possible so that tenders may be floated and ground handling operations may get the much needed boost.