Here’s some friendly advice to my good friend, DoTR Secretary Art Tugade: Kindly refrain from issuing statements thanking the stranded passengers during the 36-48 hour bedlam at the MIAA which cascaded to other airports caused by the skidding of that Xiamen Airlines plane last Thursday for their “patience and understanding.”
That is unnecessary, even out of place. What else could the poor souls have done given the chaotic situation aggravated no end by the utter inability of airport management to put some sense and order to the confused state of affairs?
He should be thankful no one lost control and instigated a ruckus. Otherwise the whole complex could have easily burned down out of sheer frustration with the ineptness and insensitivity of those who should have taken charge—from GM Ed Monreal to the airlines’ airport staff.
That’s right. Instead of lauding Monreal and his crew for “putting the situation under control” as was earlier reported in some sites (was this some feel good, fake news issued by Monreal’s staff?) he should have gone to the airport himself, thrown the manual of operations, if there is one at all, at Monreal and his crew and gotten things moving.
Of course, people will now say this is all in hindsight. Hindsight vision is 20/20. But that “mea culpa-ish” mindset will not wash this time. Or at any time at all. We have said it time and time again and will repeat it loud and clear: the way things stand, Naia is an accident waiting to happen. Like MRT-3 during the previous administration it is a miracle we have not had a real, huge accident in that complex during all this time. We should not wait for that to happen at all.
So what to do and fast should be foremost in Tugade’s mind instead of issuing statements which could only bring bad times to the fore. And that means cranking ideas and figures to make sense out of the proposals to ease our air transport woes and get us into the league of countries with highly efficient, sustainable and yes, profitable airline industries.
Is it wise to give that limited, 15 year concession for the so-called “seven tycoons” led consortium to prettify Naia and squeeze another half runway to make it a two runway operation which will definitely double or even triple the fees to be paid out by every traveler for its use? Or should government just do the needed improvements and let it the O & M be auctioned off for a reasonable fee for say 25 years? That may be a less expensive, more viable proposition. It will even lessen the temptation on this and succeeding administrations to look at the 200-plus-hectare complex as a real estate rather than an honest-to-goodness airport proposition.
Simultaneous with that move, Tugade and his crew should now make up their minds and do what they have been saying all along—get moving on that multi-airport strategy: enhance Clark, develop Sangley and let San Miguel proceed with its Aerotropolis City in Bulacan. That way we have alternatives instead of being frozen to death as with the “analysis paralysis” which afflicted Pnoy and his crew during their watch.
Just study the numbers. At its present state with all the improvements therein, Naia can accommodate 35 million passengers annually using one, some say one and a half, fully functioning runway. That number is expected to reach 43 million by next year and possibly 50 million by 2020.
With that runway, Naia can only operate 45 movements per hour, maybe up to 50 if forced to the limit. Given the spike in air travel since the liberalization of the airline industry, Naia has been averaging 55
movements per hour five years ago. Which is why there has never been a day when flights going out or getting into Naia specially those in the so-called ‘sweet hours” between 10 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon and going to the early evenings would be on time. By 2023 or thereabout when arrivals will presumably get into the high 50 million or even 60 million already and we don’t do anything about our airport situation then we might as well close shop and hibernate. Dead to the world.
Now, if some people come along and start questioning this kind of rush at a time of turmoil and uncertainty as being hasty and unworkable, then Secretary Tugade can finally make his statement. He can now say-go ahead damn me and shut them off with a stern “It is better to have tried and moved rather than not to have moved at all.”
