WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS?

Feb 19, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

I stepped off the airplane and made my way to the immigration section. At one point I wondered whether my plane had veered off course and landed me in the wrong country but I quickly overcame that temporary bout of jet-lag and was surprised at the efficiency of the immigration staff.
I then had to wait an eternity for my baggage. For the short distance from where the plane gates to where the baggage belt is in the baggage area, it sure takes a long time for the baggage to get to passengers.
And to compound the problems, it seems as if everyone’s baggage comes off at the same time. So there is usually a long line to have your suitcases checked at Customs.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that there are now trolleys available to move your suitcases from the conveyor belt to the examination centre. Before, a passenger was required to lug his heavy suitcases up to the counter for examination. Not anymore. Surprise! Surprise! You can now have a free trolley to help move your suitcases the ten-metre distance between the belt and the examination desks.
I had nothing to declare and was about to exit the area when I was abruptly brought back to reality. I was told that I could not proceed beyond the door with the trolley. I could not believe what I was hearing.
The authorities at the airport went to great pains to provide passengers with trolleys to fetch their baggage but one can only use the trolleys in the area between the conveyor belt and the door of the incoming area, a distance of no more than ten metres.
In order to take your suitcases outside to where your hosts are waiting, you have to then hire a cart pusher, called ‘Red Caps’, who will charge you a fee of G$100 per piece of baggage. This means that if you are travelling with two checked pieces and a hand luggage you will be required to pay the Red Cap a sum equivalent to G$300 for a distance which is no longer than thirty metres from the door of the incoming area to the car park.
The money is not the problem. The issue is the foolishness in having trolleys in the airport but restricting its use only for within the incoming area. This is quite ridiculous and makes Guyana look like a laughing stock.
Why is it that the airport authorities cannot simply allow for the trolleys to be used right up to the parking area so that passengers can roll the trolley right up to their vehicles? Why could a few of the Red Caps not be placed within the parking area to retrieve the trolleys and push them back into the incoming area after the passengers would have finished using them. It is not as if there are thousands of passengers coming into Guyana every few minutes.
Are they afraid that the trolleys would disappear? Well if you cannot implement a system to secure trolleys, how are you going to secure the runway lights from theft?
There are other serious problems at our airport which can be mentioned. We have the only outgoing area where passengers alone are allowed, and despite the need to ensure that flights depart on time and the security threats that can increase because of the presence of large numbers of well-wishers crowding into this area, there is a tremendous business opportunity that is being foregone by locking out from the incoming area, the hundreds who go each day to see their friends and families off.
It looks really primitive to see a long chain being placed across the entrance of the doors to the outgoing section so as to prevent non-passengers from entering. What is done at most airports to ensure crowd control – and these airports have far greater traffic – is that someone is placed at the end of the queue to monitor that only passengers are in the lines.
Guyana needs a serious rethink of its plans to promote tourism. It needs to see business opportunities rather than problems in numbers; Guyana needs to do much more to make travelers feel comfortable. There are just too many bottlenecks, if not at the airport, along the roadway, and especially by over enthusiastic traffic cops who even stop persons driving within the roads of the airport.
What a welcome to Guyana: A trolley that is prohibited from going beyond the door. An over-priced Red Cap service and traffic cops keen on ensuring that passengers get to their destination safely, so keen that they will give you a ticket for the simplest of infractions.

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