The malfunctioning of conveyor belts since Thursday morning were made operational although their movement was slow in carrying the checked luggage. This caused delays in the departure of most of the flights. Some of those who had to catch their connecting flights at their respective airline hubs had to miss them. 

As many as 78 passengers of Bahrain Air were stranded in Bahrain since Thursday night, according to Shaji Nihal of Al-Balagha Travel & Tours. “The flight left at 9 p.m. on Thursday after a delay of about an hour, but the passengers missed their onward flight to New Delhi from Bahrain Airport,” he told Arab News.

Most of the departures from the terminal were delayed from 30 minutes to several hours. An Air India flight, which arrived late, was scheduled to leave from the terminal shortly before midnight on Thursday, but it departed around 5 a.m. on Friday.

Some flights continued to be switched to the Haj Terminal for their departures. They included Emirates, Gulf Air, PIA and some charter services. Passengers waiting at the North Terminal were confused as to which flights were departing from the Haj Terminal. However, arrivals at the terminal from various destinations were more or less as per schedule.

Airline and travel agency officials said there was an urgent need to upgrade the infrastructure of the airport to meet such unusual situations as the Eid period when there is an unprecedented rush of holidaymakers and Umrah traffic.

“Interestingly, the airport’s South Terminal where the national carrier Saudi Arabian Airlines operates has also seen an unusual rush of passengers, but infrastructure has been able to cope,” said a travel agent.

KAIA, which opened in April 1981, has an ongoing plan to upgrade its infrastructure to accommodate 15 million passengers arriving or departing from it within a year, an airport source said. These include hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who come annually by air to perform Haj and Umrah.