Failure by expats in clearing traffic fines before travelling out of Oman is having a domino effect, causing delays in the entire operational network of airlines.
Last-minute clearing of fines at the airport by passengers are leading to flight delays of up to an hour besides affecting ground operations, some airlines have complained. They are also incurring extra costs.
An ROP rule makes it mandatory for all expats to clear their traffic fines before travelling out of Oman. An official from one of the airlines operating out of Muscat said, “There are many cases wherein passengers are stopped to clear their fines and find themselves short of cash. They then call up friends or relatives, wasting precious time. They too are inconvenienced.”
If offloaded, these passengers have to re-book their ticket, which means incurring extra expenses. He said that summer is peak travel time, which means more passengers. “We would like to request passengers to clear their traffic fines before leaving for vacation.”
The airlines have to make a difficult choice of either offloading such passengers or run behind in their departure time. An official from a UAE airline said that flights have to wait for these passengers to complete the formality.
“If passengers take very long, we have to offload them. This takes even longer as we have to look for their luggage. We have two to three such cases every week,” he said, adding that this causes inefficiency at all levels of operations.
“It gets worse when people arrive late and then have to go through the drill. It also makes the entire experience unpleasant for other passengers.”
Deepal Pallegangoda, country manager, Mihin Lanka said, “It is a problem as we have to offload them. But waiting is better than offloading, which takes longer. We get two to three cases per week. At times there is a problem when the fines can be paid only with cards and some people need to make arrangements.” If a passenger is leaving the country for good, he may not have an Oman bank card to make a payment with. This too causes delays.
Ali Asghar Zaidi, station manager in Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) said, “It gets pretty hectic for us and we feel sorry for our passengers as they have to go through the drill. Most of them do not carry sufficient cash to pay their penalties and need to arrange for it.
“If the waiting time is more, we have to offload them, which takes about an hour as we need to take out their baggage. This delays the flight by an hour. We have a couple of such passengers on each flight.”
He said the number was especially higher last month when cash was being accepted and people were not carrying sufficient amount to pay fines. “We would like to urge the passengers to clear their fines before they embark on a journey. If the flight is delayed when we wait for them, airlines end up incurring heavy fines (parking charges, crew etc). This disrupts the entire network.”
Source: MuscatDaily