GO TO AIRPORT EARLY, PASSENGERS TOLD

Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco on Thursday advised departing passengers to be at the airport a few hours before their flight schedule to ease overcrowding at the departure and arrival area of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).

Tansingco said the long passenger queues at the NAIA Terminal 3 resulted from the transfer to the terminal of operations of China Southern Airlines, Gulf Air, Jeju Air, Thai Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, Jetstar, Starlux, and Scoot.

"Although our manpower at the airport is more than enough, these long queues of passengers could not be avoided due to many factors, foremost of which is the recent transfer of several airlines from NAIA 1 to NAIA 3 that resulted from the impending shutdown of international flight operations at NAIA 2," Tansingco added.

He said the move has caused a 10-percent increase in the daily average number of passengers departing from NAIA 3.

Tansingco added that other contributing factors to the congestion at NAIA 3 are limited space, flight delays, diversions caused by bad weather and frequent declaration of lighting alerts resulting in simultaneous disembarkation of passengers from affected flights.

"We are constantly coordinating with the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) in seeking the best solution to address this perennial problem of overcrowding in our immigration areas at the NAIA. Among these are the installation of additional BI counters and expanding the space of our departure area," he said.

Tansingco said the BI is actively hiring immigration inspectors to address the problem.

"In fact, due to the augmentation of our manpower, we have granted the request of our airport terminal heads outside Metro Manila, such as those in Clark, Mactan and Davao, by reassigning immigration officers to their turfs, he said.

Tansingco added that 99 immigration officers will be reassigned to NAIA terminals 1 and 3 on June 16 when NAIA 2 stops servicing international flights.

2023-06-08T14:19:15Z dg43tfdfdgfd