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NAIA: Is it terminal?

November 29, 2011

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Probably one of the best persons to pass judgement on the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 is a frequent flyer.

Fortunately, I’ve been living with one for many years now.

And so today, I’d like to share with you the thoughts of a frequent flyer on why our airport terminal has been cited as one of the worst and most hated in the world. The writer is my hubby, who frequently goes to Berlin to teach Internet journalism and whose travelogues have been published in various publications including Silver Kris, Singapore Airlines’ in-flight magazine.  

Here is his story, which appeared in Asian Dragon magazine recently and which the magazine is allowing me to post online.

Enjoy –

NAIA: Is it terminal?

By Alan C. Robles

When they die, frequent flyers who were good go to Changi Airport. Flyers who were bad end up in NAIA.

Am I saying that the Ninoy Aquino International Airport is hell? Of course not. As far as I know, hell doesn’t charge for the suffering.

But NAIA requires departing passengers to pay a “terminal fee”, currently 750 pesos (US$17). This collection is supposed to go to a fund for improvements to the airport.

Excuse me? Take a moment to rub your eyes. Breathe deeply…You all right? Ready to continue? Yes, you heard right, for improvements to the airport. The very airport where, last year, the toilets had no running water. Instead they each had an attendant standing beside a large full barrel, waiting to offer distressed passengers a dipper of water and lots of toilet paper.

Ghastly as it was, that arrangement was still probably better than this year, when there was no toilet at all in the gate I was in — it had been completely shut down and barricaded and everyone in need had to climb a steep flight of stairs to use a small toilet near one lounge.

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No restroom at all - PHOTO BY Alan C. Robles

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The male restroom - PHOTO by Alan Robles

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At least they replaced the broken bag hook above, but you probably shouldn't sling a heavy bag on it - PHOTO by Alan C. Robles

My best guess is that the “improvement” the terminal fee is supposed to finance is sentimental in nature and really means “keep everything looking the way it did a generation ago.” How else can anyone explain the fact that nearly 30 years after it opened, NAIA (or to give it its current alias, NAIA Terminal 1) still looks and feels the way it did in the 1980s? To be more specific: small, crowded, squalid, shabby, depressing, decrepit, dirty, with a general air of inefficiency, inadequacy, decay and indifference.

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Slim pickings at the NAIA Terminal 1 duty free shopping - PHOTO by Alan C. Robles

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Passengers waiting at NAIA Terminal 1 don't have much to do - PHOTO by Alan C. Robles

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Hopefully, this construction work is for improving NAIA Terminal 1 - PHOTO by Alan. C. Robles

When I think about it, I suppose I’d have misgivings about an airport whose main claim to fame is that somebody was murdered in it. Not exactly what you’d call a Unique Selling Proposition (“our airport: millions of departures and the occasional assassination”). Furthermore, after that fateful day in 1983, Ninoy Aquino went on to become a national icon. But the airport stayed a dump.

I have used NAIA for decades now. If Terminal 1 could talk, I’d imagine it saying a few choice things. “Roll over and die” would be one “Why doncha just shut up and go on out of here” would be another. “Well who cares what you think?” would be a third. What amazes me is that through the decades no management has even come close to putting up halfway decent facilities.

In the 1980s, Singapore’s Changi (my favorite airport) was already streets ahead of NAIA and since then it’s widened the distance to light years. Changi has lounges, plenty of comfortable seats, wonderful shopping and dining options. Also private baby care rooms, play areas and a nifty 12-meter slide for children. Of course it has WiFi, and it’s free, as you’d probably have guessed. But wait, the airport also has hotel cubicles, rest areas, showers, and a swimming pool — I am going to cry now. I once used one of Changi’s free computer terminals and filled up a feedback note to management saying how cool their airport was. I got a thank you reply the day after. Can you imagine anybody from NAIA thanking anyone? NAIA, which last time I was there this year still had no WiFi my devices could detect, whose free computer access seems to consist of an empty table with some wires sticking out of it disconsolately? And whose children’s play area is a small sad hole in the wall?

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NAIA's play area is a small sad hole in the wall - PHOTO by Alan C. Robles

Singapore Changi now has a rainforest lounge. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll say this: “Hah! A rainforest in Changi? Only now? Don’t they know NAIA has been a jungle for years?” At Terminal 1’s departure concourse, passengers are herded like animals and have to form crude lines snaking around in bewildering patterns. One night, waiting to board a long-haul flight, I saw birds flying through holes in the ceiling (jungle wildlife). In the 1990s, a foreign passenger died of a heart attack caused by an epic failure of air conditioning and a rise in temperatures (jungle heat). Around that period, a section of the roof also gave way, inundating a corridor with cascading water (jungle waterfall).

And what’s a jungle without loathsome beasts? In 1997 a man drove over to NAIA to fetch his arriving brother and got into an argument with airport guards and police officers about parking. The guards ganged up on him, dragged him to a detention cell under the complex, roughed him up and then emerged a short time later to sadly reveal the man was so depressed that he had committed suicide by hanging. Although the murderers got 30-year sentences, it’s not a story you’d want to put in a NAIA brochure — which anyway does not exist.

Surely NAIA must have some good points? I can think of a couple. First, I haven’t lost my bags yet. Though I do remember years ago, I was with a large group of arriving passengers who were told to wait in front of a certain belt for our luggage. It took us a few minutes to realize that our bags were actually arriving in a belt on the other side of the hall. There was a mad scramble.

Second, NAIA is an award winning airport. It’s made it at least two years in a row in Sleepinginairports.net’s list of “Ten Worst Airports In The World.” In fact this year it’s number one. Among the remarks about NAIA: “Bribery and theft exists. Airport taxes are collected, but the money does not seem to go towards the betterment of the airport.” One commenter related: “When I asked a security guard where the smoking area was he told me to follow him…and took me out on to the tarmac (so much for security) where he then insisted on a bribe before he let me back into the terminal. How does one say ‘no’ to a security guard with a gun?”

I have seen an arriving passenger ahead of me tuck a US$5 note into his customs form and passport which he then handed over to the inspector, who returned the documents less the currency. You mustn’t ask me to prove this because I didn’t have my video camera running at that time.

Everybody else in the country except Terminal 1’s management has known it for decades. NAIA is not a jewel in the country’s travel crown. NAIA Terminal 3, the German-designed complex down the road that’s supposed to be Terminal 1’s successor, has been mired in a legal squabble involving corruption for 10 years now. Until it goes fully online, most travelers are stuck with Terminal 1. My goal each time I’m there is to spend as little time as possible in it. But because when departing I try to be there three hours before my flight, I spend a lot of time hanging around. There’s not much to do — the duty free shops are small, the massage services are expensive, the food stalls grotty and horribly overpriced. Early this year two sandwiches, a couple of sodas and a canister of chips cost me PHP 700. On the international budget flight I took, a full meal cost the equivalent of PHP 540.

Transport links, tourist maps, guides and printed information are virtually nonexistent, if you arrive in Manila with nobody to pick you up, you’re at the mercy of highly-priced airport taxis and touts.

Dear transport and tourism authorities, you can do whatever you want to boost our visitor figures and our country’s image but could you refocus your radar on this simple fact? NAIA is the first place in this country visitors will see. And also the last. All our goals, targets and exciting projects will be affected by those impressions.

But the question I’d really love an answer to — the one I’ve asked myself each time I’m inside NAIA is this. Just where do those terminal fee collections really go?

_____________________________

Related Stories

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NAIA’s air traffic congestion worsening

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Why does world billionaire Lucio Tan have such a troubled airline?

Tagged With: Changi airport, NAIA Terminal 1 toilets, Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Sleepinginairports.net, terminal 1

Comments

  1. Ennisa says

    February 26, 2012 at 5:03 PM

    Not naman worst. We should appreciate the smallest of improvements the authority is doing. I’m a former employee and I can really attest to whatever negativity their facilities have. We should encourage pa nga our own to do better and stop comparing. Anyway, it is our image to the world NAIA projects.

    • amante_rador says

      April 29, 2012 at 6:07 AM

      i think comparing naia to an asian neighbor’s airport, taken as a constructive critism, is healthy. improving slowly through the years isn’t a gargantuan task for naia mgt unless it is not profiting at all. then naia is doomed…

  2. allan says

    January 2, 2012 at 8:52 PM

    naia naia hmmmmm…yep…i am right…busted toilet drains..smelly lounge area, unsmiling naia employees, customs & immigration personnel IF YOU will NOT slip a 10 US DOLLAR bill.

    TAXIS outside the airport seems like your paying for 2 days stay in a hotel when they charge you going to Singalong Manila ONLY..HAAAYYYYYY….

    WALA ng PAG-ASA ang mga taong ang nakikilala lamang ay PERA…..KAYA nga, diretso na ako papuntang davao city via singapore on singapore airlines para makaiwas sa mga taong ito…mabuti pa sa aming airport, maayos, maaalalahanin ang mga tao roon.. MARAMING SALAMAT PO Vice Mayor Digong Duterte and MAyor Inday Duterte sana maging ganyan din ang NAIA…

    • Baltazar says

      January 3, 2012 at 10:53 PM

      @Allan,
      I’m also a frequent traveler of Manila-Singapore route but I did not experience this $10 sort-of-bribe. For what reason you will pay them with this amount? If you are talking about the $10 airport gate fee before the immigration gate, then that is legal – EVERYBODY PAYS. Taxis? Go for the legitimate airport Taxis just outside the arrival area. They are all available in 3 terminals and they will charge you rightfully . Although it has a higher flag down rate – I think around Php70) – it is still cheaper comparing to Singapore’s which is $3.00 from the airport plus 50% night time charge premium. If the cab driver insists on not flagging down the meter and instead go for a verbal contract, tell him to stop the cab and get out and wait for a legitimate airport cab. Ordinary people like us should start trusting the system but at the same time, guarding it in ways we can such that no abuses will prevail – then in our small ways, we help clean the miry system. You mentioned Singapore, then why not try it the Singapore way LAH! Whining and fanaticism will bring you nowhere. I have twice scolded two cab drivers attempting a cheat and they had no choice but to follow me. So unfortunate for me, I’m from Batangas City and it will be more inconvenient physically and financially for me to take the Singapore-Davao-Manila route….makes me stupid as well ;-) . Well, as for the airport itself, yeah, it really needs a total makeover.

  3. pinoysacanada says

    December 30, 2011 at 5:56 AM

    i hate hate hate NAIA terminal talaga. everytime i go home from abroad, napakabaho, at walang kaayusan ang buong airport. tapos ang mga officers kaliwa’t kanan ang panghihingi ng bribe. ang mga tao na hahawak lang sa bagahe mo, manghihingi ng pamasko kahit July na July. Dios MIO!

    sa Korea pa lang, sabi ng mga pinoy na kasabay ko, mandatory daw magipit ng dollar sa passport mo or else pahihirapan ka nila.

    the transportation>>>>>> WORST in the world. nakakagalit ng sobra

    • raissa says

      December 30, 2011 at 6:13 AM

      I agree on all points except – the worst in the world.

      Siguro sa kin, Libya is the worst.

  4. yumi_makino says

    December 18, 2011 at 3:13 AM

    I was able to fly through Emirates last year and I can’t forget the rusty chairs in the boarding area of Terminal :o( and the small stores that sells delicacies that looks like neighborhood sari sari store. I hope the feud about Terminal 3 will be solved before the building turns old and ugly like Terminal 1.

  5. R3D says

    December 13, 2011 at 11:34 AM

    How many more blogs/videos to remind the embarrassment named MIAA? Aplenty.

    Sick of retired ex-generals running the same idiocy for more than 20 years. The Terminal fee is legalized extortion.

    Like the so-called overtime charges by BoC from every international airline. BoC does not know the word ‘shifting schedules’. Another form of legalized extortion.

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  1. Save Philippine Tourism: Ax the Common Carrier Tax! | Definitely Filipino says:
    December 10, 2011 at 5:58 PM

    […] 1, from the European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines to blog entries such as one from Raissa Robles, in which they have addressed time and again the impacts of continuously imposing such tax measure […]

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist Then they came fof the Trade Unionists, and I did not out speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me— And there was no one left to speak for me. —Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)

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