MADINAH: Defective air conditioning units at Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz International Airport (PMIA) have left passengers sweltering amid the excessive afternoon heat. The travelers had to resort to using pieces of paper as fans to cool themselves down.

Ground services have called for an immediate intervention to rectify the issue, which they claim has made the environment “unbearable” for the passengers and staff.

“The amount of air coming out of these units is not enough to cool the building in this 50-degree temperature,” said one employee. “As the airport is receiving large numbers of pilgrims from outside the Kingdom, it is not enough to rely on handmade fans!”

The secretary of the airport’s director of ground told local media that “inside the office, we suffer more than those who are on the ground. Rather than the usual 20-degrees Celsius, the temperature inside the office is up to 30 degrees Celsius, and it is unbearable to work in such temperatures from the early morning to 4 p.m.”

Abdullah Abdul Malik pointed out that the airport was opened only a few months ago and is a brand new facility. “It seems strange that a new airport should suffer from such technical issues,” he said.

The director general of ground services at the airport, Hassan Al-Hamed, said: “There is a separate company responsible for the air conditioning. We have submitted a number of reports and have presented the issue to authorities, but the company has attributed the issue to a fault in the air conditioning units.”

Director of PMIA Mohammed Al-Fadel said air conditioners at the airport halls are programmed twice a year, in the winter and in the summer. He said that the units were reprogrammed at the end of last week and set to 24 degrees Celsius, but the increasing outside temperature calls for resetting the entire system.