The annual Guide to Sleeping in Airports, which is compiled by Canadian blogger Donna McSherry since 1996, has named Jeddah’s King Abdul Aziz International Airport as the worst for overall experience. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has gone through it recently.

Long queues at check-in and at immigration control make using the airport both stressful and chaotic. Check-in staff wrestles with large numbers of unruly foreign workers often returning home with large boxes of goods. The meaner staff screams at the passengers and treat them like cattle to be prodded and frightened. It is a shameful behavior to witness. And the contempt and mistreatment of foreign travelers by our Passport officers is even worse. There have been reports of chronic delays of up to four hours for passengers waiting in line just to have their passports checked and stamped to enter our country! Can you imagine if Saudi citizens were subject to such extreme delays and ill-treatment? It would be the end of the world.

For sure the physical facilities of KAIA are lacking. There are not many dining options except for sandwiches and soft drinks. In the North terminal, there is only one shopping area after check-in — which I must note has improved greatly over the last few years — and that is about it. There are no gardens, video game parlors or cinemas like at Singapore’s Changi airport. The bathrooms are often dirty and flooded with water. Overall it is a stressful experience.

But the new terminal at KAIA is nearly finished and should finally start operating in 2017. There have been so many delays and revised start dates for the new terminal that I have stopped believing the statements about it coming into operation. I will believe that the new terminal is finally being used when I land in Jeddah and am walking through the delightful new structure that is gigantic from what I’ve seen and will be able to handle up to a whopping 80 million passengers a year by 2035. There will be trains to whisk passengers to their departure gates such as the ones at the Atlanta airport. There will be an onsite hotel with 120 rooms, and a Haramain Railway Station to transport pilgrims directly to Makkah and Madinah.

The online guide admits that things will drastically change at KAIA next year once the new terminal is open. But I fear that if the main irritant of foreign guests being maltreated by our officials when they land here continues at the new terminal; much of our effort in time and resources used to build the new terminal will have been in vain.

While some pockets of the Saudi bureaucracy are incredibly efficient and fast, such as those who do the renewal of Saudi passports, which now only takes 24-hours, others like the Passport officers at KAIA Airport are inefficient, lazy, rude and mean.

The Ministry of Interior needs to urgently retrain its Passport officers working in our airports to make them behave politely and efficiently when processing passengers. How many times have I gone through immigration at Dubai airport and been impressed by the calm, polite and efficient officers, who speak in whispers and treat everyone equally well. Why can’t travelers arriving in the Kingdom, both foreign and Saudi, have the same experience? I don’t think it’s asking too much.

When KAIA’s new terminal is open and running, it will certainly impress in its size and sleekness. But what good is that if the beauty of the physical product is ruined by slow and rude immigration staff? Do we really want the lasting impression of foreigners going through our airports to be one of humiliation, anger and frustration?

Jeddah is the gateway to Makkah and Madinah for millions of pilgrims who arrive here every year to perform Umrah and Haj. The way many of these pilgrims and workers are being treated today is shameful and should not be tolerated any longer. All of us deserve better.

• Rasheed Abou-Alsamh is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.