Air Traffic in Manila next to impossible

SABBATICAL NOTES. 21 JUNE 2014. SATURDAY. N2. 
Air Traffic in Manila next to impossible. 

THOSE WHO take the skies to move from one point to another in the world would always easily make comparison between and among airports. 

Layovers are good opportunities to exchange notes with bored passengers. 

Layovers are moments to criticize the worst of airports one has been to. 

Since February this year, I have been flying regularly in various places in the Philippines and elsewhere.

Each time I catch a plane at the NAIA, I am worried of two things: 1. the cab that would bring me to that airport, and 2. the plane that would spirit me out of that hellhole called Manila.

The first one, I figured a way to solve it by befriending taxi drivers whose attitudes and demeanor and deportment suited my own.

The second one is beyond control, like that Ebola virus running wild and causing havoc now in West Africa according to some news account.

And like that Ebola virus, the air traffic situation at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport--why on earth did they change Manila International Airport, pray, tell me?!--almost always gives you (1) fever and (2) mental hemorrhage.

The first one, as a result of your blood pressure shooting up because planes do not land on time and they do not take off on time and the second one, as a result of your inability to account these impossible things happening at this airport, with all the bad elements and spirits lurking, and with horrible stories about airport people trying to fleece those coming into the country.

Our trip from Siem Reap to Manila was one heck of a time--and it was not a good time.

Two hours of delay in Siem Reap because Cebu Pacific did not come on time, and more than two hours of waiting to taxi after landing two hours late at the NAIA.

By the time we were able to get out of the airport, it was about 0500 AM, or four hours late.

NAIA/