What’s worse than the worst?

It’s – and I say this with a very heavy heart – NAIA, our very own Ninoy Aquino International Airport. It was recently voted – again – by an online poll of travelers as the world’s worst airport to sleep in – no comfortable seats, no quiet spaces, bad restaurants, comfort rooms that offer the barest of comfort. It’s a terminal obviously caught in a time and space warp.

But the other week it got even worse. The airport radar system broke down, and word was flights were being guided for take-off and landing manually or mano-mano (that’s the term the guy at NAIA used).

On my way to the airport before 10 for a noon flight, I got a text message from a friend who was scheduled to leave on an 8:40 flight. “We’re still here don’t know when we’re flying. Nakapila pa kami (we’re still queueing) for takeoff. Delay din kayo (you’re delayed too).”

The girl at the check-in counter said there was no advice yet about a delay. But a guy behind the counter told me, “Malamang (most likely) delayed, pero nandyan na eroplano nyo (but your plane is there already). Mano-mano kasi ang take-off, inaayos pa ang radar (Take-offs are done manually, the radar is being fixed).”

A little before 11 my friend texted that they were finally taking off. We though were still in limbo. Noon came, and went. After 1 p.m., we were told to board – and kept inside the plane for over an hour before we finally took to the air. As a result we missed our connecting flight; fortunately there was another flight two hours later that could accommodate us.

Beyond the inconvenience is the downright shame of having to explain our delay to – of all people – friends and those in the international travel and tourism industry attending the China International Travel Mart in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. Adding insult to our injury and shame was our landing in the new (opened in June 2012) Kunming International Airport, another one of those humongous, sleek, glass and steel terminals with air bridges and baggage carousels galore. It is intended to accommodate 25 million passengers at full capacity. It also has an equally humongous cargo facility to handle Kunming’s booming cut flower export industry. The old Wujiaba airport, built as a military facility during the war for the famed US Flying Tigers, is being torn down for commercial redevelopment. And to think Kunming isn’t even one of China’s premier cities, but is classified as a second- and third-tier city. Right now the new terminal seems pretty cavernous, and at the evening hour we arrived it wasn’t that busy, but it looks forward to the influx of travelers as the province ramps up its tourism campaign “Colorful Yunnan, Tourism Paradise.”

I hate to be such a whiner but this problem of ours about airports has gone way beyond ridiculous. We entice foreign visitors with beautiful sights, great bargains and warm and wonderful people, but what is our welcome when they fly in? Successive secretaries at the Department of Transportation and Communications have fiddled and faddled about NAIA – 1, 2 and 3 – as well as other airports all over the country. We seem to have a plan that is rejected before it can be implemented in favor of another plan, which is in no time further modified, and so on and so on...

The same seems to be the case with our rail system (LRT, MRT and PNR), with the car plates and stickers at the Land Transportation Office... Hey, aren’t these DOTC concerns? Oh dear, what’s going on at the Department of Total Confusion?