‘… no, NAIA isn’t the worst airport in the world although at times it strives hard to be.’
THERE’S a social media post going around from a female traveler who has been talking about our airport. She speaks highly of the airports of the big cities of the world, praising them to high heavens. And then she tantalizingly talks about the worst airport in the world before revealing the name: Manila’s NAIA terminal complex.
Four friends, separately, sent me a link to her post, knowing how much I am a fan of our very own. But in NAIA’s defense, I think she was exaggerating a bit when she claimed that the transfer between terminals took four hours; while I have never really had to get myself transferred from one terminal to another, I think four hours is much of an exaggeration. Three hours may be more like it. Ha-ha.
She also described NAIA as “non-air conditioned” which is another over-the-top comment. Maybe she had the good fortune of being in Terminal 2 or 3 when their systems conked out which, to be fair, is not an everyday occurrence. But yes, there should be no reason why such should happen to an airport which should have backup systems to kick in when the main ones fail.
So yes, we have to admit that it has long been established that for radar systems and power systems, we don’t seem to have backup systems in place.
Otherwise, the January 1, 2023 radar brouhaha shouldn’t have happened at all. At that time, with about 40 minutes to go on my flight home from Bangkok, I remember asking the Thai Airways FA why we were turning back. She looked at my monitor, disappeared for a while and then returned: “Because the Captain says Manila airport is not responding, sir,” she explained. So why don’t we head to Cebu or Clark, I asked. She disappeared again and when she returned, she said “No airport in the Philippines is responding, sir.” The two thoughts that crossed my mind then were 1) “Only in the Philippines” 2) “Is this a coup?”
So yes, there are some bases to indeed complain. As I have.
Heck, if we cannot get one single escalator fixed — the one at the north wing of Terminal 2 that leads from the arrival area up to the departure level — how can we expect better?
There’s also a stupid mistake the designers of Terminal 2 committed, which is surprising given that Terminal 2 was designed, we were told, by the designers of the Paris airport. And that mistake is this: arriving and departing passengers do not pass through two separate levels that do not meet. And so it happens that when a PAL plane disgorges its passengers, the passengers about to board another aircraft are held back at the gate to allow the arrivals to pass through. However nominal, delay occurs.
Actually, the Terminal 2 design flaw is also seen in the old Cebu terminal used by domestic flights and the Davao International Airport.
Contrast the design of Terminal 2 to that of the Iloilo Airport, where arriving passengers immediately descend to a lower level for baggage claim and immigration. A small airport but well-planned.
Now going back to my favorite terminal complex: no, NAIA isn’t the worst airport in the world although at times it strives hard to be.
But now that San Miguel is taking over, let’s see if things change — for the better.
