THE 40-member Airline Operators Council (AOC) said it welcomes the proposal to privatize the management and operations of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).
“That’s welcome news; we will have better service,” said Florante Isidro, manager of Qantas Airways. “We’ll give the government a service-level agreement, because, as things stand now, there is none.”
Isidro explains that a service-level agreement means there would be a base from which to measure performances by the different AOC members.
“The airline will fulfill its obligation to quality services to customers, and then the private airport operator will have the same, as well.”
Isidro gave as an example the present setup at the airport immigration. Employees simply perform their jobs without the pressure of how much a passenger had to wait before his or her document is processed.
“At the immigration, how many minutes should be spent processing the passenger leaving the terminal,” Isidro said, noting that some government employees take all the time to process each customer, resulting in cumulative delays. “With privatization, you pool together all the key service areas and, at the end of the day, there is efficiency in all areas of operations.”
Professional
LEONCIO Dakila Nakpil, chairman of the AOC-Association of Southeast Asian Nations, added that a service-level agreement would professionalize the approaches to dealing with a private entity rather than doing it with the government bureaucracy.
“There would be faster service, because talking with government officials entails a procedure where someone had to pass through different levels of the bureaucracy, talking with different people before any project is approved.
Nakpil said that since the passport issuance is under the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Bureau of Immigration enforces border control at the airport, what is needed is to rationalize or institutionalize it.
“When a passport is issued, only two sides should be talking: The overseas Filipino worker who applied for the passport and the immigration officer who exercises border control,” Nakpil explained. “So, those who have supervision of border control is the only authority to off-load, to fire, to hold, a passenger—sila lang.”
As things stand now, the Office for Transportation Security has the power to prevent the departure of passengers allegedly found having bullets in their possession.
Leverage
THIS leverage had allowed some unscrupulous OTS employees to engage in mulcting, known as tanim-bala or laglag-bala.
According to Nakpil, an airport manager must have oversight authority only “to make sure that the policies, procedures embedded in the agreement between the private operator and the government are properly implemented.”
“For example, access control must be issued by the private operator, also called the concessionaires, not the airport manager,” Nakpil said.
“Sa nangyayari ngayon, ang office ng airport manager ang nag-iisyu ng control pass, kaya pwede ipitin ang mga airline concessionaires gaya ng nangyayari sa AOC [Today it is the office of the airport manager that issues the control pass, that’s why they can pressure the airline concessionaires, like what is happening with the AOC].”
Nakpil is referring to the forceful way the Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) compelled some AOC members to pay their delayed dues or they would be issued daily pass, instead of the seasonal pass.
Some AOC members have paid, while others are still waiting for a detailed accounting of how they accrued their dues.
Concessionaire
UNDER a privatize operation, airlines will not deal with Miaa but whoever is the concessionaire, Nakpil said.
If somebody is caught facilitating a passenger to enter the airport with an access pass, the police would arrest the erring person. It is the Miaa that would impose the penalty to the concessionaire, if necessary, according to him.
“That way, there is check and balance,” Nakpil said.
Joan Doromal, manager of KLM, said he will “echo what the other AOC members are saying.”
“We will have higher standard of service, because the government is full of red tape,” Doromal said. “In Naia 3, where we operate, if you ask for something, you won’t be able to get it at once, because there’s only one man who can act on it.”
Doromal believes that with privatization, “I’m sure this airport will improve drastically.”
He gave as an example the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (Mcia), which is now under GMR, a private concessionaire.
She said the Mcia is now operating efficiently under the partnership and has avoided the mistakes bedeviling the Naia.
In December 2013 GMR Infrastructure, in partnership with Megawide Construction Corp. of the Philippines, won the bid to operate the MCIA for P14.4 billion (approximately $320 million).
The concession agreement, signed between the consortium and the Department of Transportation and Communications, says the consortium takes full operational control from November 1, 2014, for renovation and modernization of the Mcia.
The consortium will operate the airport for 25 years.