FLYING IS NOT A CHEAP feat and is definitely not for those who cannot splurge the Benjamin to climb an altitude of over 38,000 feet or more to get to another destination.
FROM THE OBTAINING OF VISA and the purchasing of ticket to the grueling searches at the airport, it is definitely not for the faint of hearts to endure this expensive adventure.
WHAT’S EVEN MORE DISAPPOINTING is to find out—especially when you are jetlag from flying—that your luggage was mistakenly sent to another destination, leaving you in a state beyond tired and confused.
SO IT WAS WITH AGGRIEVED passengers of the Moroccan flyer, Royal Air Maroc, who besieged the local office of the airliner and seeking enquiry into their missing luggage.
SEVERAL PASSENGERS BOARDING the flight between Freetown and Europe via Casablanca told FrontPage Africa that they frequently lost their luggage onboard the flight and had yet not gotten any redress. For some who had gotten theirs, nearly everything had been taken away.
“THEY STOLE MY BAGS AND MY LUGGAGE, since the past three weeks I been coming here for my items but any time I come here they always tell me to wait, this airline is a 4-1-9 entity and it can no longer be trusted, there are many thieves working on the flight,” Timothy Giddings noted angrily.
KADI PORTE AN AGGRIEVED PASSENGER also noted that her luggage did not arrive on time, and that when her four suitcases finally arrived, they had been broken into.
“ALL OF MY SUIT CASES WERE BROKEN into and items taken from them,” Madam Porte explained. “I bought laptops, recorders, cameras and other items…and all of those items were missing from my bags.” Theft at the Roberts International Airport (RIA) is nothing new and there have been countless occasions wherein passengers have complained that their belongings were stolen from their luggage.
SINCE THE CIVIL CRISIS, AIRPORT THEFT at the Roberts International Airport has been on the increase, often casting the aspersion of the rundown and perhaps the ugliest airport in African and probably the world.
INSIDE IN PLANE IN APRIL 2015 AT the Miami International Airport in Florida, USA baggage handlers were going on a shopping spree with passengers’ bag. They did not know that they were being recorded on a hidden camera. The Miami Police Department set up the camera as part of an investigation into luggage thefts by the very airport workers who were supposed to get the bags safely unto.
ALSO IN FEBRUARY 2015, a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent from the United States Department of Homeland Security was caught stealing a $7,000 watch that a passenger accidentally left in security.
AS THIS ISSUE IS NOT UNIQUE TO LIBERIA ALONE, other countries have put in place measure to curtail the reoccurrences of such. And, of course, Liberia should put in similar measures to curtail this heartbreaking act of luggage tempering or theft.
WHEN AT A TIME MAIL THEFT WAS RISE, measures were put in place and it became a felony to tamper with the mail of someone. Today, recipients do not complain that their packages sent or received had been tampered with.
AS LIBERIA GETS SET TO REBOUND to be a tourism mecca for West Africa, these are all measures and mechanisms which have to happen to draw tourist here, especially so when the Chinese government has embarked on a US$50 million project to construct the terminal of the RIA.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AIRPORT in the world appears ugly when despicable acts such as airport theft happens, least to mention Liberia, where the entire airport needs renovation and reconstruction.
NOBODY, TOURIST OR NOT, want to fly to a country where their belongings would be stolen without any redress. Liberia can do such to safe already jetlag travelers from the anguish of airport theft as is being experienced with Royal Air Maroc.