I don’t spend a lot of time at our Bacolod-Silay Airport, that for a brief shining moment, when it was still new, was supposed to be of international standards.
That is because when arriving, I usually just breeze through the baggage claim area, where the only waiting involved is for the carousel to deliver the luggage. And when departing, I take full advantage of my Silaynonness, since my family and I can afford to go home when flights are delayed, as the airport is just a 5-minute drive away. So, what happens more often than not is that we get to the pre-departure area just as the boarding call is announced, so I don’t get to spend a lot of time to take in just how badly the airport has deteriorated due to poor maintenance.
However, I was recently unfortunate enough to spend some extended time at the airport, due to an 11pm flight that was delayed all the way to past 1:30am. The flight was initially delayed to around 1am, and since we were lucky enough to get the email notification before we left, we just stayed home a bit longer. We eventually left for the airport around 12 midnight, but after being dropped off, we discovered that the aircraft had not yet even left Manila. Since it was already pretty late and hassle to get ourselves picked up again, we decided to tough it out at the airport.
Aside from our flight, there were 2 other delayed flights that night, so the terminal was pretty packed. We stayed at the ground floor check in area for a bit because there were empty seats and it was cooler there, and knowing the tendency of our poor terminal’s AC system to be not so effective, we chose to wait downstairs, at least until the other flights, which were already boarding, had left, leaving less competition in the predep area.
Waiting at the check in area, you could already see how much the terminal needs a fresh coat of paint and some minor cosmetic repairs, especially if one looks up.
After a while, we went up to the predep area to wait with the rest of our flight. As we scanned the seats to find our spot, the place was simply disgusting. On, under, and around the seats were all sorts of trash left there by passengers, who obviously don’t know the meaning of CLAYGO. The lack of a cleaning crew, probably because it was already past midnight, exposed just how damak and spoiled rotten the people who use the terminal are. Personally, I didn’t think of blaming that level of damak on the absence of the cleaning crew, but it was more on how it exposed how entitled, spoiled, and disgusting people can be if given the chance/excuse. That wasn’t the fault of the airport management per se, because putting a cleaning crew there 24/7 won’t make a naturally damak people less so, but it was just an observation that needed to be discussed. We really need to do better as a people when it comes to cleaning up after our own crap, and not just always expect the service crew to clean up all the time.
On the part of the terminal itself, the signs of age and overuse are already becoming quite obvious. One thing is certain. It may not need a grand renovation, but the airport certainly needs a fresh coat of paint and the usual minor repairs all around, inside and out, from the check in, to pre departure, to the jetways, and the baggage claim area, almost everything is dinky. Chairs, walls, ceilings, floors, trolleys, you name it, it needs some love.
How the people running that facility do not see the need for such regular maintenance is mind boggling. There is a lot of government money to burn in this country, as we have seen from our tendency to demolish perfectly fine roads just to pour fresh concrete almost everywhere, so why can’t airport officials at least put some effort into keeping our airports looking decent? Who knows, they may even get a decent kickback from it, while we at least get an airport that doesn’t feel like a bodega.
The walls, ceiling, furniture, floors, and facilities of our airport terminal need better maintenance and improvement. That’s basic facility management. Maybe our public officials are like me, who don’t spend a lot of time with the peasants, but in their case, because they have minions who do the waiting for them, so they haven’t seen just how dinky our airport (which still has “new” on its name), has become.*
