The wrong queue

I refer to Janet Wojtkow’s account of airport security grief (April 12).

Caveat that I wasn’t there myself but the harsh criticism in this case came across as a little unfair. If passengers choose to queue in the wrong place (“Non EU citizens/EU citizens”, in this case) the alleged rudeness of staff is certainly a great unnecessary shame but one would not have fared any better in a lot of other places in similar circumstances and be given very short shrift indeed by airport staff rather than any sympathy. Especially for having queued wrongly in the first place.

Family gathering belongings after passing through a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint at JFK Airport. PHOTO: David Tran Photo/Shutterstock.com

The truth is airports are very often stressful places. Help is, unfortunately, all too often thin on the ground in places like Catania, Pisa, Rome, Gatwick and JFK.

There is certainly much for which Malta’s tourism product can, unfortunately, be criticised. We face stiff competition, especially for the quality tourists we claim to be after while scraping the bottom of the barrel. There is no realisation that the sun does not only shine in Malta.

While one can go on justifiably about pollution, traffic, noise, dirty, shabby environment, aggressive rude behaviour, etc., long airport queues from being in the wrong queue “for over an hour” for airport security, as long as the queues were clearly signposted, does not seem to be one of them.

ANNA MICALLEF – Sliema

Gozo no longer Gozo

I read with bated breath the article by my friend, Mario Borg, CEO of the Gozo Regional Development Authority, hoping I would find some tangible ideas about how not to proceed unabated with the rate of ruining that formerly lovely island.

But it is clearly evident that the drafters of the mentioned discussion paper once again fell into the usual wells of rhetoric, and pious hopes, that us simple mortals have now been forced to accept in these islands.

For starters, the people of Gozo, and Malta too, of course, know that numbers speak a lot. Are we here being given a clear sign that the number of building permits for ever more projects (apartments, leisure accommodation, hotels, restaurants and other speculative undertakings) will go down and not up from one year to the next? Are ODZ areas being increased or decreased? As things are presently proceeding, all the notorious “case officers” and decision-makers at the Planning Authority will continue to ensure that the answer is “no”.

How can this discussion paper be taken seriously and convince people that an ever more built environment will enhance community well-being when the same people know, and are feeling ever more every day, that fresh air, open spaces and roads, agricultural land, valleys, seaside areas and what not are heading the way that goes in favour of the speculator and not of the simple non-abbienti (not well-off) citizens? How can Gozo’s formerly characterising regional identity not continue to be lost when the ratio of built-to-unbuilt land on the island has moved in favour of ever more and more building.

It must have been some 10 years ago, or over, that I first put the question in these columns: “What makes Gozo… Gozo?” If individuals knew and sincerely felt the right answer to that question, it now is certainly the case of their being forced to reply that whatever made “Gozo, Gozo” is now also lost for ever… and many Gozitans too are to blame for it….

JOHN CONSIGLIO – Birkirkara