I often face a nagging procedural hassle at the airport whenever I travel, and I understand many other travelers may be facing the same situation.
My fingerprint was registered at the passport office. Yet, it becomes a nightmare whenever I turn up at the counters. I am told that my fingerprint does not show my information in the system although it shows it contains my fingerprints.
Recently when I was going out of the Kingdom with my family through Riyadh airport, I kept running from one counter to another for about one-and-a-half-hour to complete my procedure in spite of my request that the flight was going to be missed.
Finally, I was told that the Saudi Arabian Airlines flight, which I was supposed to board, had taken off. We stayed at the airport for another 24 hours to get another flight to my destination. We suffered financially and physically for something we were not to blame.
I saw three other passengers missing their same flight and they were unable to afford to stay at a hotel. When I approached the passport officials to get this matter resolved, they did some paperwork and told me to go back to the Passport Department of my home city. But when I came back, I faced the same trouble at the immigration counter. I have been going to the concerned departments but without any solution.
I request the concerned authorities to resolve such issues to save us from the hassles that we face at the airport. I would request use of biometric identification and scanning as an alternative to the fingerprints to help such people. — Dr. Muhammad Mahmood, Tabuk
Nagging process
