Riding the Perfect Storm

Session 8 of the PETRONAS Management Forum 2008/09 obligated me to travel back to my beloved Malaysia – the truly Asia. Amid the chilly ambience and rainy weather of the 12th day of February, I went to the el-Nazouha airport, which is 15 minutes away with my lovely wife, Nana. Upon arrival at the airport area, the Meet & Assist staff, named Bassem – a pleasant and decent guy speak good English welcomed to assist my checking-in process. With his smile on his face, he ushered me to the check-in counter of Qatar First Class section. At the counter, whilst Bassem resumed his task, I patiently observed some self-centered people tried jumping the queue and there was small commotion between the Qatar airways supervisor, I presumed, with one nicely dressed young Egyptian. Making it worst, what provoked my patience was the officer himself who allowed the passengers behave in an uncivilized way. However, credit must be given to the Supervisor though, who managed the situations in a very professional manner. It took us about 25 minutes crossing the first hurdle! Alhamdullillah, we crossed the second hurdle – the immigration counter with no hustle in a smooth civilized queue.

I went straight to the water closet (WC) to do my ablution. There was no proper prayer area, I mean AREA, not ROOM, allocated for the Muslim to carry out their obligation inside the airport where 95% of employees and passengers/users are Muslim? Just could not believe it myself. If we can have a beautiful garden around the airport which I think cost them hundreds thousands LE, why can we have a small but proper prayer room say at least for 30 people?
Despite the lack of proper prayer area, we performed our Maghrib -‘Isya prayer at the corner of the departure hall. One could imagine how tough it was to achieve the standard of concentration or khusyu’ amid the un-conducive ambience of the hall!
After about one hour waiting, the gate opened, I joined the queue, and then the Security passed me in but the Qatar airway Supervisor politely stopped me. He asked me to wait for another bus, for the first class passengers. Again, I patiently watched the economy class passengers boarded the good-looking bus and wondering why they cannot just let me in, after all, it was only me alone, I thought. Finally, they ushered us, 2 other Egyptians to another bus, which is actually in bad-shape as compared to the one I mentioned earlier for the economy class passengers. I could understand their intent though, and would not be really bothered with the segregation either, but the point that I want to make is how people should use their common sense appropriately.
Greeted by the multi-racial Qatar Airlines’ crews, we finally boarded the Qatar Airline Airbus 320 safely.

Subhanallazi Sakharalana Haza Wamakunallahu Muqrinin Wainna illa Rabbina lamunqalibun.