The Road To Being Number One Part 3

I have just attended the Senate Committee budget hearing for the DOTC and its attached agencies. While on the way home, I received a call from operations at Mactan Cebu informing me that a passenger, 68 years old (US citizen), died in his sleep while on a Cathay Pacific flight to Cebu from Hong Kong. His original destination was Atlanta.

Having just flown to Manila from Cebu that same morning, I remembered looking out of the window of the Airbus 320, gazing at the grand scenery. The sun was just rising in the east, its silhouette above our wing as we headed towards our final approach and final destination.

Many times in life, we go along and miss the opportunities of sharing our dreams, our joys and reflections with those who have the same desires and wishes. I have seen varying moods in personalities among the passengers and the service providers going through the airport whenever I go around and inspect the different facilities and lounges. It is something I look forward to everyday as it gives me the feel of whether everyone truly feels at home in our facilities.

A couple of weeks ago, we had Gary Lewis of the 60s to 70s group Gary Lewis and the Playboys. I could almost feel the joy of playing many of his songs in my own band, Meistersingers, when I got to talk with him. We loved singing hits like: Everybody Loves A Clown, This Diamond Ring and Green Grass. His group performed at Waterfront Lahug last September 12. I had the same thrill when I met Pat Upton in person last July 5 at the VIP Lounge. I told him how our lead vocalist, Chuchi Iriarte, had a hard time singing his Spiral Staircase songs because the pitch was so high, especially More Today Than Yesterday.

Meeting distinguished personalities such as these and discussing simple things with them make us more complete as individuals. In trying to plan for the development of airport facilities, we need to know what everyone wants. We invite all to share their experiences and suggestions.

As planned and scheduled, the first Cebu Pacific ATR Turbo-Prop aircraft arrived in the evening of September 30, and started its Cebu hub operations by October 1. The previous week, in Manila, I tried to look for this aircraft at the Cebu Pacific Headquarters there. Upon seeing it, I texted Lance Gokongwei, who was in Singapore, to get the confirmation that this indeed was the third and the newest ATR, and it was earmarked for the Cebu hub.

Yes Clark-Cebu is now every day and we are strengthening our connections to the cities around the Central Super Region and Mindanao. At the same time, the two PAL Express Turbo Q400s have stabilized their Cebu Hub operations after starting ahead of schedule last May 19. Just this week, the two aircraft (30 and 31) have been given names: City of Bacolod and City of Cagayan De Oro. We are still waiting for the third PAL Express Q400. The second Cebu Pacific ATR starts November.

The last two weekends: Sept 26-28/ Oct 4-5 were busy times for all the department and division managers of MCIAA. Based on the initiatives of some members of the board and our long time intention of institutionalizing our policies, operational doctrine and procedures, we all sat down to standardize and integrate all our functions and objectives based on the mandates of the charter. At the same time, we invited senior special staff from the DBM head office to help us in some of our future plans.

The importance and result of the work done during these last two weekends will definitely be realized and will positively put the MCIAA and all the stakeholders, operators and locators at the Mactan Cebu International Airport in the right direction.

As more and more airports become operational in different areas around the Visayas and Mindanao, we see our dream of being able to go to more places and meet different people. Already, plans are afoot of strengthening rural air services by reestablishing the missionary routes and allowing the Philippine Aerospace Development Corporation to partner with international aircraft companies to produce modern sea planes. We envision our airport to be the site of the manufacturing, assembly, testing and even to be the Main Hub of such air vehicles.

 At the start of the year, we reaffirmed our motto of "One Airport, One Team, One Family," for we believe that this is the only way that we can be successful in all we do. We also modified our logo to "from the galleon, to the skies," as we necessarily have to constantly look back at our origin and history, to be able to break free and go "hypersonic."

As we celebrate our anniversary on December 18, it will be… "MCIAA at 18, one team, one dream."