Publisher’s Notes by Lincoln M. Baluyut
When my wife arrived a few months ago from Canada, it was a terrible arrival experience for her.
This is my story.
After my trip to Korea last week, I found out firsthand how our premier world class airport (?) operates when all the bosses are sound asleep and I with no media pass at that to verify matters.
Left Incheon airport Sunday evening in an aircraft full of Koreans that will be spending their hard-earned money for a few rounds of golf at the Clark Freeport Zone and maybe try our very own home-made kimchi in some Korean town restaurant.
It was a breeze going through immigration in Incheon, all computerized and no issues. Boarded our flight. And off we went. Landed in Clark around midnight. The passengers are now trying to get the hell out of the plane.
BOOM!
Just like what my wife said when she flew back in. The line at the foreign passport section must have been a kilometer long. The issue was there were three (3) other international flights that arrived ahead of us and maybe 3-4 immigration officers, ONLY, manning the booths.
Oh my!
It took more than 2 hours before she was able to get out of the airport. And that sucks! And as Mr. BL mentioned before, why aren’t the booths for PWD/Seniors/etc. not being used for their sole purpose?
That’s when I saw an agent motioning to a family with a baby on a stroller to get out of the line and use the booth. That’s when I asked if I could use the same booth being a senior and I was ushered to it. Wow! That was fast! Lucky me. But not for the rest of the passengers who had to wait longer.
Headed to the baggage claim area and witnessed the throng of passengers waiting for their bags at three of four carousels that were operational at that time. And what about us? The fourth airline? A baggage guy told me that ours will be at Carousel 3.
So we all waited and waited. Suddenly, someone from a flight that arrived from Hong Kong by Cebu Pacific started blurting expletives as they’ve been waiting for their bags for a while. It was later found out that their bags, that were unloaded from their plane, were still on trucks and were forgotten to be dropped at the carousel.
While still waiting, I headed to the Men’s Room to relieve myself from too much drinking. Water only. I noticed that the flooring had so much water splashed from the wash bins that haven’t been looked after by the attendant. At the exit saw the attendant standing, chatting with a female co-worker, and mentioned the situation to him. l was shocked by his answer. He knew about it but wasn’t doing nothing. I probably made him move when I asked him if he was an employee of the cleaning services that’s under contract with the airport.
Now back to bags which I was expecting would on the carousel by the time I came back. But none yet as there was still this a discussion between a lady, maybe from CebPac, and a gentleman, probably one of the baggage handlers on why things were not done properly.
Being myself, I approached them and asked to resolve their issue somewhere as we’ve been waiting for almost an hour for our bags which are supposed to be on the same carousel as those from CebPac.
The issue began to become our problem as there was no other carousel to drop our bags.
That’s when I advised them to remove the few remaining bags from that flight so they can start unloading ours. Small issues become bigger if not done properly.
Finally, we were able to leave the airport past the 2:30AM time.
That’s how our world class airport operates.
And it sucks!
*****
The story that we carried in our print issue regarding the newly-asphalted roads turned into private parking lots by car owners is just deplorable.
It shows that car owners really do not care how and where they park as long as they can park. Just like the attitude of some motorcycle and tricycle drivers.
That’s why traffic problems in our country won’t be solved even if you bring all those traffic professionals.
It all boils down to DISCIPLINE. When there’s NO discipline, there won’t be changes. We look like a country that’s going nowhere compared to our ASEAN neighbors who are more disciplined.
The sad state that we’re in.
Reminding the Angeles City Traffic Development Office of the good job they are doing. Of clearing roads in the city of traffic hazards.
Hoping to see this thing happening soon.
