“Let us be patient and see what happens next.”
Although the public expects higher fees in a privatized NAIA in exchange for better efficiency, comfort and ambiance, this is normally done after some tangible improvements have been made. And probably not as high as the new charges are. To many people, it does look like the new airport management is in a hurry to recover its investments.
This early, the NAIA has increased its overnight parking fees going up from around P300 to about P1,200. The reason given was to reduce traffic congestion in the area and because parking fees had never been increased for the last 20 years. Other service fees for people requesting VIP treatment have also now been increased from P800 to P8,000 per individual. This particular increase appears to have raised a lot of eyebrows which forced the Secretary of the Department of Transportation to say “let us observe first.” He did not elaborate any further. Airplane parking fees are also now being increased which means that very soon, airfares will be going up.
To be fair, however, this was bound to happen when the airport management was privatized. What was not expected was the amount of increase – it is substantial. Increasing the fees tenfold, I would say, is quite difficult to defend. But if we want an airport that is going to be at par with the world’s best, we have to be prepared to pay more for better services. Furthermore, we should expect that the new NAIA management will be charging other fees on many other things that the public did not pay anything before.
Let us take the case of comfort rooms. It is currently free but who knows, clean comfort rooms after all require constant cleaning and that is an added expenditure which will have to be recouped.
We have to bear in mind that the terms of the agreement between the government and San Miguel are stiff. For instance, in the profit sharing, San Miguel, if I remember correctly, agreed that the government’s share would be 82 percent. It also transferred to the government coffers P30 billion upon signing of the contract and agreed to some kind of a yearly rent. That does not include the P170 billion to be spent in the rehabilitation of the NAIA which will be solely shouldered by San Miguel. Since San Miguel is a business conglomerate and not a charitable organization, it must understandably be able to not only recover its investments but make money during the life of the agreement.
Given the current conditions in the current NAIA complex, Ramon Ang should be commended for taking a monumental undertaking of transforming NAIA into a truly world-class facility because the challenges are certainly enormous. For one, the P170 billion envisioned to be invested in the project would not be enough if the areas surrounding the airport terminals will not be included in the rehabilitation. Transforming mainly the airport terminal buildings into more modern structures will not be enough to make the airport complex world-class.
As I have written many times in the past, the shanty areas leading to the terminal buildings together with Tramo Road that leads to Terminals 1, 2 and 3 must be redeveloped. For those who have traveled to many countries, they know that there is hardly any country in the world that has the kind of shanty towns surrounding their airports as we do. Other countries try their best to landscape and beautify the areas going to their airports to try to give visitors a good first impression. We are the only country that does not do it.
This is the reason why no matter how much modernization is done on the terminal buildings, if the uncollected garbage remains on the streets together with all those spaghetti electrical wires along the road, the NAIA will never be world class. We need to redevelop the entire airport complex to make it more presentable to first time visitors to the country. Having a road like Tramo going to the NAIA will not attract tourists but will scare them not to come back.
I am sure Ramon Ang and his people already realize this. So, let’s be patient and see what happens next.
