Clean toilets, freezing temps welcome NAIA Terminal 1 passengers
Atidy, spacious and wellventilated Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 with clean toilets now welcomes transiting passengers and airport critics alike.
After being crowned as the world’s worst airport for three years in a row, NAIA has made leaps in terms of improvements, especially the 33-yearold Terminal 1 which benefited from a P1.3-billion facelift under the exiting Aquino administration.
The improvements have “wowed” passengers, making NAIA Terminal 1 Manager Dante Basanta confident that airport critics behind the travel website sleepinginairports.net will be amazed too.
“I invite them to come to Terminal 1 and see for themselves the significant improvements we have made for the past years. They will be amazed with how different Terminal 1 is today,” he said.
Passenger movement areas in Terminal 1 now has new and colorcoordinated carpets, repainted ceilings and LED lights, making the airport appear cleaner and brighter. Meanwhile, the often mocked restrooms now don new fixtures and are regularly cleaned.
“All of the air handling units and chillers at Terminal 1 have been replaced with new ones, such that passengers now complain of freezing,” Basanta said.
Terminal 1 also now uses new flight display monitors. There were also additional check-in, immigration and customs counters set up in order to lessen passenger queuing time.
“The improvement is very significant because passenger queuing is not long as it used to be,” Basanta added.
The contractor for the P1.3-billion rehabilitation project, D.M. Consunji Inc. (DMCI), has also installed buckling restraint braces to augment Terminal 1’s protection against seismic movements.
DMCI is supposed to finish the rehabilitation works last January, in time for the country’s hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit. However, completion was delayed due to additional repair works and the terminal management’s delay in turning over the site.
“Terminal 1 has been operating while the rehabilitation works are ongoing. It is really a challenge to complete the rehabilitation in time because there are areas of the terminal that could not be turned over to the contractor right away,” Basanta explained.
The airport official said DMCI is supposed to finish the structural retrofitting of Terminal 1 by July 3 but as of press time, the contractor is requesting for an 82-day extension to fix the basement, ramp and other non-passenger movement areas. Basanta said DMCI’s request is still being evaluated by the Department of Transportation and Communications and the Manila International Airport Authority.
Following the relocation of five international carriers from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3, Basanta said they have maintained NAIA Terminal 1’s rated capacity of 6.5 million passengers. This annual passenger volume translates to an average of 7,300 arriving passengers and 8,000 departing passengers daily.
“We used to have 8 million annual passenger volume and we used to accommodate 11,000 to 12,000 passengers daily,” Basanta said, illustrating government's decongestion efforts.
As of press time, Terminal 1 houses the operation of 25 foreign air carriers. Basanta said Terminal 1 will welcome its 26th airline—Ethiopian Airlines—by July 9.
Since its construction in 1979 and consequent operation in 1981, NAIA Terminal 1 only had a makeover in 1995, because of the Philippines’ hosting of the APEC summit in 1996. Designed by the late national artist Leandro Locsin, the NAIA Terminal 1 is originally designed to accommodate only 4 million passengers annually.