‘Aviation mismanagement’
The Kuwait International Airport -- in its current state -- is an example of the decline in the level of many services often due to the inefficiency of the administrative apparatus of civil aviation. A majority of the airport facilities are filthy and dilapidated and its condition is deplorable, knowing that it will remain in service even after some airlines move to the new building. The Civil Aviation could have done something, during the almost complete halt in air traffic to improve the airport situation, but it failed to do so.
After many years of working as a know-it-all Director-General of Civil Aviation and his accumulation of experiences and other things, he issued a circular on June 2, 2021 requesting airlines to collect fees for each departure or arrival and as of the date prior to the date of the issuance of the decision.
It turned out later that it is impossible to apply it retroactively to passengers who left or arrived before the airlines became aware of the decision. In addition, any decision, according to my understanding, includes imposing taxes requires the approval of the fatwa and legislation department and the Parliament, and most importantly, the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation.
For fundamental reasons, it was supposed to follow the higher relevant bodies before imposing the tax, such as informing the IATA and the national carrier about it, justifying it with a label and most importantly, requesting that it be provided with a code for this tax; to inform all airlines operating in Kuwait and in turn, impose it on travel tickets to ensure the tax toes to the state treasury which usually takes two or three months to complete the task.
Instead of following this correct procedure, as an aviation expert told me, the stubborn director insisted on issuing the decision to impose fees on June 2, 2021, and it reached the airlines two days later, only to be surprised by this decision and the need to apply it retroactively from June 1, 2021, without the decision including the tax code, which is necessary.
As expected, the representative of the IATA regional office objected to the decision requesting that airlines be given a deadline to arrange their affairs including extracting the tax code.
IATA also called on the Civil Aviation to justify imposing the tax in light of the huge losses of nearly 120 billion dollars that airlines in the world have suffered. However, the Civil Aviation rejected all the reasonable requests calling for postponing the imposition of the tax for two months, for example, and only agreed to postpone it to the date of July 1, 2021, and this in itself is an admission of its mistake and lack of experience which we have been suffering from for nearly twenty years.
Often it will retract again and extend the period of imposing the tax, noting that the decision did not clarify whether the tax will be applied to travel tickets that will be sold from July 1, 2021, for example, or will apply even to tickets that were sold several months before the implementation of the decision.
Oh rational government, how long such mentalities prevail in the management of vital institutions while there are dozens of highly qualified and experienced people sitting without work in their homes?