Showkat Alam Khan, a Bangladeshi expatriate in Canada, was much excited about his Dhaka trip.
He was going to see his mother, a cancer patient living in the city’s Kalabagan, and to let her have a glimpse of his fifteen years of life abroad, captured in video and still cameras.
Unfortunately, the tour turned quite annoying.
Soon after boarding an Etihad Airways flight (EY140) in Toronto on April 9, air hostesses requested him to send his handbag, carrying the cameras, to his other luggage in the stowage.
Showkat did not mind at all as they assured him of the bag’s safety.
Little did he know about the shock waiting for him. When he reunited with his luggage arriving in Dhaka via Abu Dhabi on April 11, he realised the handbag was missing.
Officials at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport could not find it.
On April 26, Showkat lodged a complaint with Etihad authorities at the airport and made frantic efforts to get back the missing items throughout his stay in the country only to be further disappointed.
Frustrated, he left for Canada on May 6.
Contacted in mid-June, Executive (operation) Shambhu Nath Pal of Etihad’s Dhaka office told The Daily Star they were yet to trace the lost bag.
However, Showkat’s case is not a stray incident.
On an average, 120 arriving passengers have to leave the airport without luggage every day, airport sources said.
Cases of missing luggage shoot up three to four times in the peak season between November and February, they added.
An airport official, preferring anonymity, said over 3,600 luggage of incoming travellers went missing in June alone.
In June alone, the national flag carrier Biman lost 950 bags, Saudi Airlines 700, Indian Express 500, Pakistan International Airways 200 and Gulf Airways 250 luggage that month.
Several high officials of Shahjalal airport, preferring anonymity, said the authorities almost take no step to check luggage missing.
The department that handles fliers’ luggage has 200 employees while the requirement is over 300. And, they do the work manually.
In 2010, they added, the airport authorities planned to introduce automated Baggage Reconciliation System.
As part of the scheme, the authorities need eight machines which have yet to be procured.
Contacted, a director of the airport said the airport will switch to automation but it will take time.
As per the International Air Transport Association rules airlines are bound to pay up when they lose or damage passengers’ luggage, sources said.
The airport hardly helps passengers get the compensation, and as a result, the carriers get away with it.
Besides, bags and cases often fall from the carts and the carousels, or their tags are often torn off, sources said.
Mohammad Monir Hossain of Dhanmondi said he landed at the airport at 1:20pm on July 1 by a Turkish Airlines flight and while receiving his luggage he found his 55 inches TV set worth over Tk 2 lakh damaged.
He said he had informed the carrier about the matter but it gave him no satisfactory answer.
Meanwhile, Showkat Alam Khan’s mother passed away last month. He returned to the country a few days before her death and left again after the funeral, but Etihad Airways has yet to trace his missing luggage.
-With The Daily Star input
