If you are taking, for example, the Northwest Airlines flight to San Francisco via Narita, Japan, you would be at the airport by 0600. The security guards who verify your passport and airline ticket at the door and the persons manning the X-ray machine to scan your baggage are all employees of the airport service operators.
Likewise, when you present your ticket and passport at the counter, the smartly dressed woman who attends to you and wraps a baggage claim tag on your suitcase is also working for one of the NAIA ground handlers.
Many, if not all the airport personnel you encounter, from the waiting lounge to the plane, are well-trained workers from the MIA Association of Service Operators. They work quietly in the background to make sure air passengers enjoy their trip, their pieces of baggage are safe and their cargoes are handled with utmost care.
The airport service industry is a highly specialized sector that takes care of services such as ticket and baggage check-in, food catering, ground and cargo handling, and aircraft maintenance.
At Terminals 1 and 2 of the NAIA, the major service operators are Miascor Ground Handling, Catering, Logistics and Aircraft Maintenance; MacroAsia Eurest, MacroAsia Ogden Airport Services, Nordisk Aviation Services Phils. Corp., Dnata Wings Aviation System Corp., Cargohaus Inc., Philippine Skylanders Inc. and Philippine Airlines.
The MIA Association of Service Operators runs a multi-billion peso industry which provides livelihood to some 15,000 workers and their families. Its capital investments exceed P15 billion. It pays the government very substantial taxes. When Terminal 3 opens in 2002, the airport service operators expect to further provide thousands of employment opportunities for those with experience in food preparation and catering, cargo handling, aircraft maintenance and security.
At the NAIA Catering City, for example, where Miascor and MacroAsia Eurest operate a state-of-the-art kitchen and commissary, hundreds work in an ISO 9002 environment, preparing at least 8,000 meals each, day in, day out. And these are not ordinary meals but culinary classics that exceed their airline customers’ exacting standards.
If you board an international plane in Manila, the gastronomic fare they’ll serve you has been expertly prepared by these two companies. Insiders say the two companies’ investments in the business could easily reach P5 billion.
Ground handling companies, which make sure that the incoming passengers’ baggage are sent to the carousel in the shortest possible time, and the outgoing passengers’ are properly marked and sent to their owners’ destination, also employ hundreds of people. These employees are so adept at spotting which baggage go to which cargo container to make sure that their owners retrieve them easily.
Incoming and outgoing cargoes, meanwhile, are carefully handled by the cargo handling service providers. They make sure that each cargo is given the best possible care and is released only upon the consignee’s compliance to customs laws.
With the services that this industry provides, the airlines manage to keep their glossy image. But despite the important role the operators play in airport operations, these companies have maintained a low profile. Not that they are complaining. In fact, they delight in being the trusted partner of the world’s best airlines. And they are ready to even better their services when the NAIA Terminal 3 opens 18 months from now.