EDITORIAL - No longer the worst, but…

Boosted by the more spacious Terminal 3, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport has shed its tag as the world’s worst. In the latest survey on the website sleeping-inairports.net, travelers picked the NAIA as the fourth worst international airport in the world, after the Islamabad Benazir Bhutto in the Pakistani capital, Jeddah King Abdulaziz in Saudi Arabia and Kathmandu Tribhuvan in Nepal.

The NAIA had topped the online survey for three years. Earlier this month, US website The Cheat Sheet also picked the NAIA as the world’s worst airport. Most of the complaints of travelers participating in the surveys have focused on the main Terminal 1. With the move of several foreign carriers to the NAIA 3 in recent months, however, combined with the ongoing renovation of the original terminal, travelers are starting to feel the difference.

As the latest survey results show, the room for further improvement is cavernous. The NAIA 3 toilets are better than those at the NAIA 1, but the new terminal lacks personnel and facilities as basic as passport scanners to speed up processing of arriving passengers.

All three NAIA terminals also share a single runway, which can use better traffic management of incoming and departing flights. Unrestrained residential and commercial development around the nation’s premier gateway hemmed in the NAIA, leaving no room for significant expansion. But upgrading of existing facilities is possible. Simply improving ventilation can eliminate many of the complaints about an airport named after the murdered father of the country’s president.

If ever policy makers decide on the development of a new airport, it could take a generation before it becomes reality. The best that can be done at this time is to improve services and facilities in the existing airport. It is not an impossible task.