Back to the worst

Monday-morning quarterbacking is always easy. This is what those in charge of airport development in our country in the past decades may say, as previous administrations are blamed for the lack of foresight in expanding what used to be called the Manila International Airport or MIA.

The MIA was one of Asia’s first modern airports – the hub of our country’s flag carrier and Asia’s first commercial airline. It was a source of pride for Filipinos.

Staying ahead, however, is a constant effort, especially when everyone else is moving aggressively to catch up.

Our neighbors, recognizing the importance of airports, not only caught up with us but left us eating their dust.

Two of the world’s best airports – as consistently ranked by the aviation industry and travelers in various surveys in recent years – are in our region: Seoul Incheon in South Korea and Singapore’s Changi International. Last year, The Guide to Sleeping in Airports also ranked among the 10 best gateways worldwide Tokyo Haneda, Hong Kong International and Tokyo Narita.

In contrast, Terminal 1 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport was ranked for several years as the world’s worst or one of the worst, by travelers voting in the sleepinginairports website. NAIA managers at the time betrayed their hopeless lack of understanding of the challenges of their job by saying that airports aren’t meant for sleeping anyway, so what was the fuss?

Besides international airports, our neighbors also poured resources into developing secondary gateways, to stimulate economic activity and tourism outside key cities.

In contrast, our country headed in the opposite direction. Baguio City, one of our top tourist destinations, lost its gateway, with myopic local officials instead allowing buildings to be constructed close to the airport.

The same thing happened in Manila. For many years, instead of expanding the MIA to keep up with a booming population and ever increasing air traffic, officials allowed the airport to become hemmed in by residential, commercial and industrial development, until there was little room left to build more runways.

Policy makers probably saw no urgency in expanding the Manila airport capacity because the air base at Clark, operated by American forces, handled a lot of air traffic. By the time Mount Pinatubo erupted, covering Clark Air Base with volcanic ash, and the US government shut down the facility ahead of the Philippines’ rejection of the extension of the bases’ lease, there was room only for limited expansion at the NAIA.

Airport development in many other parts of the Philippines was also disappointing. Traveling around the country as a reporter, I saw goats, dogs and chickens roaming airport runways.

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There was no goat or chicken at the NAIA runway on Friday last week. Instead, heavy monsoon rains rendered the runway too slippery for a Xiamen Air flight. Or at least this is the story of the plane pilot, who has been prevented from leaving Manila pending an investigation by Congress and aviation authorities.

Considering the pace of probes in this country, that pilot can be sure he will be in the Philippines far longer than the hours and even days of waiting endured by tens of thousands of passengers whose flights were canceled or delayed by the accident.

We’ve heard the horror stories of the passengers on a flight from Taiwan, which was diverted to Clark and made to sit there for five hours, and then had to fly back to Taipei.

Passengers on domestic flights reportedly had a longer wait because the international flights were given priority as operations normalized, apparently to minimize connection disruptions.

Worse, local carriers must have been overwhelmed and could not attend to every stranded passenger. One Mindanao-bound passenger who was supposed to fly out of Manila on Saturday had to keep going back to the NAIA because there were no flight updates from the local carrier either by text or e-mail. The flight finally pushed through on Tuesday.

Overseas Filipino workers, who had to fly to Manila to take connecting flights, were among the most inconvenienced. Many were on a tight budget and couldn’t stay in hotels. Some OFWs fretted that they could lose their jobs as a result.

No doubt, the disaster would put NAIA 1 back on the world’s worst list.

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Even if the accident is officially blamed on mechanical failure, pilot error or the weather, the inconvenience would not have reached such disastrous proportions if the NAIA had more runway capacity, or if the plane had been towed away quicker. It’s still a national embarrassment.

After US forces attacked Iraq, the first Iraqi diplomat posted to Manila following the fall of Saddam Hussein sought to reassure me, during a visit to The STAR, that stability was returning to his country. Among other things he cited to make his point was that air travel had normalized in the Iraqi capital. He added with pride that Baghdad International Airport was better than the NAIA – although that was the handiwork of Saddam’s regime.

That diplomat would have a smug grin if he finds out the latest developments at the NAIA.

Compounding the chaos at the Manila airport, according to reports yesterday, was the apparent lack of coordination between the MIAA and Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines in clearing dozens of “recovery flights” by various carriers for stranded passengers.

Filipinos are capable of building and operating better airports. The Guide to Sleeping in Airports included four Philippine gateways among the 25 best in Asia in 2017: the international airports in Iloilo (12th), Mactan-Cebu (13th), Davao (17th) and Clark (22nd).

The NAIA Terminal 3 is a modern although unremarkable facility. Unfortunately, it shares the runway that was blocked by the Xiamen Air plane.

The country can still make lemonade out of this lemon by reinforcing the official resolve to expand airport capacity – whether by boosting utilization of the airport at Clark, building a new airport, or expanding the NAIA through whatever means possible short of resorting to Oplan Double Barrel.

Something good must come out of this chaos.