BY JOHNNY NOVERA
IT is interesting to read the Vision Statement of the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), saying that ”by 2016, it will be the leading organization in airport development and management, pursuing excellence in customer service, world class facilities, high quality security and safety standards in promoting the Philippines as a destination of choice for trade and tourism.”
Great vision, but their mission of rendering efficient service to the air-riding public is far from being done.
The air traffic congestion at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) continues to worsen and we do not think that the management of MIAA is doing anything much to remove NAIA from the world’s “Worst Airport List.”
In our trip to Manila on May 2 on a Cebu Pacific flight from Iloilo, we were surprised that our plane brought us to the very end of the runway westward and unloaded its passengers at the old airport terminal building otherwise known as Terminal IV.
We thought that Cebu Pacific was just trying to save again on passenger tube rental there being no such facility there.
We have about 10 foreigners in the flight, and we can see the discomfort on the faces of two males who had to line up before they can have their turn on the small restroom of the old terminal building.
By coincidence, we have read in The Philippine Star the comments of Bobit S. Avila, coming from Cebu last week, relating his exasperating experience in his column, “Shooting Straight” when they were also unloaded at Terminal IV, and so with another columnist of the paper, Babes Romualdez, who writes “Spy Bits.” The latter commented that “if NAIA I was horrible, you should see Domestic Terminal 4!”
We can see that the idea of shifting the planes to discharge their passengers at Terminal IV is intended to diffuse the crowded Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). This situation is not new.
Maybe, we should revisit the suggestions that we wrote in several columns late last year that international flights arriving in the Philippines at daytime be directed first to land either at the Iloilo International Airport or that of Negros Occ. at Silay City.
Then a tour itinerary is offered them for the day to include a taste of Ilonggo or Negros’ delicacies before they resume their trip to Manila in the evening when there is no more congestion at NAIA, just taking a domestic airline.
Also, through these domestic connecting flights, Metro Manila passengers may book their return international flights at Iloilo or Bacolod, so that foreign airlines need not anymore proceed to ease the air traffic at NAIA.
We think that this strategy may be implemented by the government with one directive from the Department of Transportation & Communications (DOTC) to the airlines and the airport authorities in the areas concerned. Why don’t we try this? (For comments or reactions, please e-mail to jnoveracompany@yahoo.com)/PN
