"30 hours….30 hours," shouted a visibly irate foreign passenger referring to the delay he and his family had to bear at the newly-opened Ninoy Aquino International Airport—Terminal 3.
The travel stories from hell come in various form. What could have been a seamless travel for foreign and local passengers of Cebu Pacific had turned into a customer relations nightmare as delays and cancellations plagued the first few days of operations of NAIA 3. After having been mothballed for several years, the controversial NAIA 3 is akin to a "purgatory" based on the complaints of passengers.
Is the NAIA 3 be blamed for the glitches?
Said one American passenger from Hawaii: "The airline (Cebu Pacific) is simply saying ‘we’re sorry,’ but they’re not offering anything that might give some meat to their apology. They are blaming the airport but not themselves. The way they handled this is really bad customer relations." The Cebu Pacific flight of the American visitor had been delayed for five hours.
Muntinlupa lawmaker Rufino Rozzano has called on the temporary closure of NAIA 3 which lacks ‘certifications of travel safety’ from the International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Rozzano says "his fears about the safety and preparedness of the new airport have come true" after a ceiling at Gate 133 collapsed on Monday. Luckily, no passenger was hurt in the incident.
Only 20 percent of NAIA 3 is currently being utilized and I am just wondering the complexity of the problems when the whole of NAIA 3 will open for operations. NAIA 3 is a major public transport infrastructure and its operations is not a sort of ‘trial and error.’ Endangering the lives of passengers is not good for the image of the Philippines at this point in time.
Why operate NAIA 3 when it lacks Icao and IATA certifications? Since there will be no peace of mind among passengers, it would be better if they will heed the call of Rozanno to stop operations of the new airport pending the issuance of safety certifications.
"The safety of airport workers is now at stake. There should be no trial and error in operating an airport, as we could be jeopardizing the lives of both workers and passengers. Their safety must never be compromised," says Romy Sauler, vice president of the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (Palea). He recommends that the government should also hold the payment of $400 million to the Fraport-led consortium, which financed and built the new airport.
It would had been better if the government funneled the millions of dollars into the development of the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) which has the viability to become the country’s premiere airport. The Clark airport, which sits on a 2,500-hectare area is four times bigger than NAIA and boasts of its two 3.2-kilometer parallel runways. If an airplane makes an emergency stop at the middle of Clark’s runway, incoming and outgoing flights can still use the other runway. A plan is in the offing for a third runway.
In the meantime, passengers at the NAIA 3 continue to rant and rave at the new airport which is wilting away like the GameHouse computer game called "Super Collapse." To the passengers, please watch your head.
