Dubai
The Dubai International Airport has earned the distinction of being the world’s number one and busiest airport. The airport, despite handling over 80 million passengers in a year, takes every care and provides excellent facilities for the comfort and safety of the passengers. But, unfortunately, some passengers misuse the services and facilities, which are being offered free of charge.
The most misused services are the free luggage trolleys, which passengers abandon in a haphazard manner outside the airport’s vicinity. Almost every day, while driving past the airport on Al Khawaneej Road, I find the airport luggage trolleys, which can be found at both Terminal 1 and 2, abandoned dangerously on the pavements beside the main road. They pose a threat to the motorists and passersby. They block the pavement, as seen in the photograph, and make it hard for pedestrians to walk safely. Additionally, sometimes they are placed in a manner where a motorist would not be able to see the trolley, resulting in an accident.
I sometimes find trolleys abandoned as far as half a kilometre away from the airport and on the main, busy roads. In several major airports around the world, passengers have to pay for the usage of luggage trolleys. But, not in Dubai.
A Gulf News report published in January this year stated that the airport saw a record number of passengers in 2016, with the hub’s traffic at 83.6 million people. With that large a number of people to manage, the authorities and security officers cannot keep an eye on everyone. It is the duty of the passengers to not misuse the free trolley service being offered by the Dubai airport authorities and to at least behave in a civilised manner.
— The reader is based in Dubai.
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