EDITORIAL - Eighth worst

Once again, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport has been included in a list of the world’s worst airports. This time, the NAIA’s terminals 1 and 3 ranked eighth among the worst 10. The ranking, however, is by a different group, the US-based Wall St. Cheat Sheet, so it can’t be described as an actual improvement from NAIA 1’s worst ranking in the travel website sleepinginairports.net.

Wall St. Cheat Sheet noted that the world’s 10 worst have common problems: “smelly bathrooms, long lines and rude staff,” with NAIA 1 described as “particularly crammed.” The study may have confused NAIA 2 with 3, the newest of the terminals, which is spacious for being underused. International carriers should move into the new terminal, but they are waiting for the Philippine government to resolve its litigation with Germany’s Fraport AG over the facility.

In the meantime, the foreign carriers are crammed into the old Terminal 1, which a CNN Travel article described, along with the other NAIA facilities, to be “beleaguered by ground crew strikes, unkempt conditions, soup kitchen-style lines that feed into more lines and an overall sense of futility.” CNN adds: “NAIA brings the term ‘Stuck in the 1970s’ to a new level.”

Sleepinginairports, for its part, ranks airports based on the website’s so-called “Four C’s” – comfort, convenience, cleanliness and customer service. Travelers participating in the survey have consistently ranked Singapore’s Changi, Seoul’s Incheon and Hongkong International among the world’s best.

Filipinos may find some consolation in the fact that airports in the United States and Europe were ranked worse than the NAIA by Wall St. Cheat Sheet, which picked Brazil’s Sao Paulo-Guarulhos International as the world’s worst. Ranked ahead of the NAIA were Chicago Midway, JFK in New York, N’Djamena in Chad, Paris Beauvais Tille, London’s Heathrow, La Guardia also in New York, Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya and Tribhuvan in Nepal.

The thought that there are worse airports in the world, however, should not reinforce the complacency of Philippine officials in charge of airport operations and development. Competitive countries compare themselves not with the world’s worst but with the best. The NAIA is a long way from Singapore’s Changi. Catching up with the best should not be an impossible dream.