Bedlam at the airport

It was a night of bedlam at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) last Saturday and to borrow the title of a gritty children’s book of twisted tales, the mayhem continued “Straight on Til Morning.”

Early afternoon that day, a different kind of storm was already brewing at the airport because as heavy rains battered Metro Manila, more and more passengers arrived at NAIA earlier than usual to make sure they could fly out.

By nighttime, the chaos at the airport was as intense as Paeng’s havoc. The mayhem actually started long before passengers got to the terminals as vehicles already piled up at the entrance gates, causing heavy traffic in the arrival bays.

In the end, the already messy evening turned out to be a full blown Halloween nightmare for tens of thousands of passengers as airport authorities closed the runway, leaving the airlines no choice but to cancel some flights.

This, unfortunately, left thousands of passengers stranded at NAIA’s nook & crannies – perhaps cold, hungry and impossibly frustrated.

Past midnight and throughout the wee hours of the morning, cancellations and flight diversions continued.

Some flights were diverted to Clark and to the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, which had its own problems just days before because of the Korean Air incident.

In all, over 40,000 air travelers passing through Manila were affected by canceled flights due to Paeng, the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) reported Sunday.

Nearly half or 295 flights out of the 618 scheduled flights for Saturday were canceled, affecting 43,151 passengers.

Welcome to Manila, welcome to bedlam.

What a mess really and this was to the detriment of passengers.

Delayed protocols

I have nothing against flight cancellations especially in unsafe times but this should have been announced earlier in the day so passengers could make the necessary arrangements. Who wants to fly through a storm anyway?

But there was a delay in the announcements.

What happened here, MIAA and our airlines? The least the thousands of tired and weary passengers could get is an explanation.

We live in a disaster-prone tropical country, battered by at least 15 typhoons a year. Storms, typhoons, flash floods are almost an everyday fare. Flight cancellations are normal and the safety of passengers – and airport and airline personnel – should always be the priority but the manner that these orders were issued, at least last Saturday, was chaotic, confusing and costly.

One would think that by now, our authorities have already put in place standard and swift protocols for flight cancellations that would have spared all of us from unnecessary trouble.

But MIAA, the state-owned government corporation responsible for the management of NAIA, announced the closure of the runway belatedly, sources told me.

It took a while for MIAA to request the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, the agency tasked to assure safe and efficient air travel, to issue a NOTAM or a Notice to Airmen, advising the closure of the airport runway.

Perhaps the assessment by MIAA’s technical teams took a while. In assessing the situation, there are wind limits to be considered; of what each type of aircraft can withstand.

By 4 p.m., an airport source said, there was already zero visibility at NAIA.

Twenty minutes later, CAAP issued the NOTAM, announcing that the airport would be closed from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday.

It was, indeed, too late. Many passengers of the night flights were already at the airport.

If the NAIA closure announcement was issued earlier, there would have been fewer flights that had to be cancelled or diverted to Cebu or Clark.

As if this wasn’t confusing enough, the closure order was extended twice – to 8 p.m. and then to 10 p.m.

Airlines learned of the extension around 6:30 p.m. Thus, flights that were just moved by an hour or two had to be canceled altogether.

A family friend was already on the plane about to taxi out of Manila when all of a sudden, his carrier announced that the flight was cancelled.

Passengers had no choice but to deplane.

But of course, as Murphy’s Law would have it, he got stuck in the airport because taxis and ride-hailing apps were either unavailable or were charging exorbitant rates.

On social media, I saw somebody post that on a flight to Manila from Singapore that night, the plane had to go back to Singapore because of the sudden closure of NAIA.

Chaos, confusion and cost

I can understand how difficult and tiring it must have been for our airport authorities to handle the mess that Paeng brought upon us; some of them are new in the position and are still just learning the ropes.

Moving forward, however, I hope they have learned their lessons. A lot of passengers’ chaos, confusion and unnecessary costs could have been avoided if our authorities decided to close the airport early on.

Airlines, too, should have canceled their flights instead of waiting for MIAA to move. After all, Paeng was already wreaking havoc earlier in the day and even the night before. In short, everyone knew a big storm was coming.

A lot of the mess could have been avoided really if our airport authorities and airlines practiced empathy for passengers.

Saturday’s bedlam also puts the spotlight on the country’s need for a new and alternative gateway.

We need to have this sooner rather than later. Otherwise, in times like these, we’ll just have to keep telling ourselves and our guests,

“Welcome to Manila, welcome to bedlam!”

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.