Passengers arriving at King Fahd International Airport (KFIA) here are complaining of long delays – sometimes as long as 10-12 hours – at immigration counters and ill-treatment by the staff present there. According to an airport official, the airport is now implementing the mandatory fingerprinting of all in-coming international passengers causing delays at immigration counters. On Wednesday, international passengers had to wait for 10 hours in the queue. “Many of the counters were without any staff. And those managing the queues were very impolite,” said one of the passengers who arrived at 9.40 A.M. and was not cleared until 10 P.M. “We were not even allowed to leave the long queues and take some rest in the nearby chairs,” said a passenger who arrived in Dammam on his maiden journey to the Kingdom, Wednesday. The airport official admitted that apart from fingerprinting, the shortage of manpower to handle the surge of in-coming international passengers is also a cause of the long delays. He said there are 12 immigration gates that should be opened to serve passengers. But only about half of these gates are in operation even during peak arrival times due to the shortage of immigration staff. To avoid long waits at the Dammam airport, many travelers prefer to disembark at the neighboring Bahrain airport and then enter Dammam by road. The official said the Dammam airport has recently introduced E-Gate cards that enable holders to pass through special gates set aside for them. “The E-Gate cards are available to all travelers, and we are encouraging all frequent travelers to get the cards for their convenience,” the official said. Opened in 1999 to commercial traffic, King Fahd International Airport is the largest in the world in terms of land area. __
