Manila's airport is the worst airport I have ever experienced in my life.
I pray I never encounter it again.
So here's what happened....
After our vacation in Boracay my friends and I were eager to get home. Though we had suffered long layovers and delays little had gone contrary to plan... until Manila. Flying into Manila we claimed our baggage after arriving late on an Air Asia Zest flight. To our joy, we discovered Manila possessed a free airport transfer service from various terminals for passengers with connecting flights. A service we were eager to employ, given we had reached the end of our vacation fund (Previously, we'd had to pay over 1,000 pesos to get from one terminal to another). I myself was down to my last 50 pesos (equivalent to about 1.05 USD). We spoke with the dispatcher there and was informed our connecting flight was in Terminal 1.
After waiting a bit for the bus to arrive we were hurried onto the transport bus labeled "Terminal 1/3" to take us from where we'd landed in Terminal 3 to our connecting flight. To our confusion, we were taken to Terminal 4, where we were informed our bus would not take us to Terminal 1. After an exasperated conversation, the driver begrudingly agreed to take us to Terminal 1. We eagerly rode there with a few other displaced passengers for a roundabout ride to Terminal 1. At Terminal 1 we happily disembarked to find our flight. However, we were stopped by security before entering the building and asked for our boarding passes. The guards were rather confused that we did not already possess boarding passes despite the fact that we still needed to find the Air Asia desk (which was housed in a terminal building). After another esasperated conversation, we discovered we'd been misinformed and were redirected to Terminal 4.
We slogged our way back to the free transport service to have an accusatory conversation witht the dispatcher there who was reluctant to help us. After snidely inquiring why we came to Terminal 1 when our flight is in Terminal 4, my friend was forced to raise his voice to inform him we were not from Manila and could only go where we were told to go. The dispatcher folded instantly under the pressure and let us onto the bus. Wearily we waited as other misdirected passengers were taken to Terminal 4.
Finally arriving at our gateway to salvation, we climbed to the departures desk on the 4th floor. Happily navigating to the Air Asia desk we joyfully claimed our tickets back to Korea. This simple transfer between terminals had taken the better part of two hours!
However, our joy was short lived. For as soon as we checked our bags and claimed our tickets were were halted before immigration by none other than a 550 Peso terminal fee.
That's right, only AFTER having claimed tickets already paid for does the Manila airport demand you pay an additonal fee to use it's airport.
My friend Daniel right cried out in indignation, "How much is it going to cost me to leave this country!?"
Having already been reduced to 50 Pesos by other Terminal fees and charges along the way, I was also indignant for being nickel and dimed at every transit turn on our journy home. Thankfully, I still carried an emergency $20 in my wallet that could cover the fee. Unfortunately, they could not give me change in USD despite having accepted it as payment. I was able to use some of the change in pesos to help my friends through the toll gate into immigration.
At immigration we found it empty, devoid of exit forms and more importantly, pens.
Every immigration form must be filled out in ink. Yet, in spite of charging each passenger an additional fee to use the terminal, they can't supply those passengers with pens to properly fill out their forms to leave.
Why?????
Thankfully, I had a pen hidden in the bottom of my bag or else my friends and I may have been forever trapped in transit limbo at Manila's airport.
Once slipping past immigration, we managed to find our gate with a few minutes to spare. Had our flight not been delayed more than two hours, we'd never have made it.
I have never been so happy to cram myself onto a plane.
In summary here are the faults I've found in my experience at Manila's airport:
-The entire airport is one inconvienent tourist trap. Each terminal is separated and passengers are ushered to take local taxis with substantial fees to get to their flights. Those who take free transit services are often faced with delays and inconvience found in no other airport facility I've ever encounterd.
-The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Nearly every employee encountered in the Manila airport gave us contradictory information. Be it the location of our flight, the flight time, and how to get there. I have never seen an airport staff so inept or inefficient.
-Here, the customer is always wrong. Everywhere we turned to try and get to where we needed to go we were halted by security guards, dispatchers, and drivers who blamed us for going to the wrong terminals! Nevermind that it was their employees that misdirected us in the first place!
-"You're foreign! Give us your money!" Terminal fees are everywhere in the Philipines and I can understand why they exist, and exist only for foreigners. As tourists, we are there to stimulate their economy, and they facitiltate the maintence of structures by charging tourists extra to use them. However, when it comes to an international airport, where customers arrange and purchase services ahead of time, sneaking in addtional fees for terminal use is underhanded at best (especially for such horrible service). Souldn't the cost of using an airport be met by the airlines who operate there? Or as a customer am I expected to believe the airport doesn't get a cut of my ticket price to use the airport? It just seems that everywhere your turn in Manila's airport you're met with someone trying to milk you for every peso you possess before letting you leave.
They say "alls well that ends well," and ending an otherwise pleasant vacation by leaving through Manila was as awful as putting my hand through a meat grinder. I can honestly say that it completely sapped me of any desire to ever return to the Philipines, if not actively avoid it in the future.
I don't write this to say the Philipines is a bad place, it isn't. It's an incredibly beautiful place and can be a relaxing place to vacation. Yet, my god, Manila airport is far and away the worst airport I've ever experienced.
Hopefully, you never have to yourself.
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