
The other day I was at NAIA 3, and while waiting for our boarding call, I was wondering why it is so crowded in that terminal. That is a place where so many people are sitting on the floor, which at first blush seems to indicate that there are not enough seats provided for passengers. However, if you come to think of it, compared to other airport terminals, it would seem to have provided a fair amount of seats, which can be found along the main corridor of the pre departure area, as well as at the boarding gates.
My wife and I were discussing the pathetic seating situation, as we were scanning the area for a place to rest our butts and couldn’t find any. She said that the terminal doesn’t have enough seating, and I chose to play the devil’s advocate and said that doesn’t seem to be the case, as it looks like there are seats but there is just too much people, which could be an issue of efficiency, meaning the terminal doesn’t move people in an efficient manner, resulting in overcrowding and the resulting competition for seats.
I pointed out that in other airports that we have been to, we never really had to fight for seats at the pre departure area, and that we have even encountered some that seemed to have less seats than NAIA 3, and yet we didn’t feel the need to sit. I brought up Barcelona’s El Prat airport, where even if the walk to the boarding gate was one of the longest ones we encountered, I don’t seem to remember any chairs along the corridor, which NAIA 3, in fairness, has a lot of.
The NAIA 3 situation needs so many chairs that airport management has already resorted to providing chairs along the corridor to the boarding gates. It’s not very pretty, and world class and multi-awarded terminals like Singapore’s Changi wouldn’t even consider stooping that low, but it is a practical solution to the constant overcrowding. Sadly, that solution is not enough, and waiting passengers still have no choice but to set their butts down on the tile floor.
If you come to think of it, a terminal needs seating only when people are no longer moving to the next stage of their journey. If the process were only predictable, consistent, and efficient, there would be practically no need for seating. Our problem is that our terminals are so inefficient and inconsistent that people need to be there hours before their flight, just in case one of its many problems manifest. This means that there are so many problems getting into the terminal, checking in, and going through security, that passengers are forced to allot so much time for the potential mess ups that our airports are known for. This results in people having nothing to do but sit down and wait 90 percent of the time. Multiply that by a factor of thousands and it is easy to see why there will never be enough chairs in NAIA 3.
That is why I told my wife that the terminal has enough chairs. Its problem is that it has an ugly reputation of being inefficient and unpredictable, along with a management team that instead of solving the puzzle, simply opted to pass on the problem to travelers by telling them to come in earlier instead, even if the terminal isn’t designed to handle a large waiting population.
When people come are made to believe that they need to be at the airport two hours early, it means that if things go well, they will have to wait unnecessarily for at least one hour, which means their butts will need to occupy a chair for that amount of time. If you come to think of it, there was even an official recommendation before for passengers to come in 3 hours early, despite not having enough seats provided for the 2 extra hours worth of idle passenger volume, which should be a crime against humanity.
If the airport management can fix their system so that they move people efficiently and consistently, without stupid delays, there would be no need to wait unnecessarily. In an ideal world, being at the airport 1 hour before boarding should give the traveler just enough time to be dropped off, check in or bag drop, go through security and/or immigration, and then be at the boarding gate just as it opens, barely needing to sit down, all without needing to stress out.
That is basically what my family does here in the Bacolod-Silay Airport, which is already so ugly that nobody wants to spend any time in it. In the case of Silaynons like me, we get to the airport 15 minutes before boarding if we are already web checked in. That way, we essentially just walk through the terminal and into the jetway. Of course, it could be because my wife uses that airport a lot, so we already know how it works. Not-so-frequent travelers will still feel the need to make allowances for mess ups, which is why we need consistency of efficiency from the side of the airport management, security, and the airlines in this country.
Whether or not that will ever happen in my lifetime, that remains to be seen.*