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Thursday, May 20, 2004
Ajero: Lack of management at airport terminal
By Antonio M. Ajero
Calidarium
A MATTER that needs to be fixed quickly is the absence of proper management of taxi service in the Davao International Airport. The situation there is simply infuriating to visitors and travelers who have to put up with the taxi cab and rent-a-car drivers who behave more like petty extortionists and two-bit swindlers than transportation service providers.
*****
On a clear day, try to be at the DIA terminal and you'll surely be incensed by the chaos that you see while watching the teeming humanity arriving and departing at the facility. The arriving passengers are particularly inconvenienced starting with the jam that usually occurs at the exit door when getting out of the terminal. Even those who only have hand-carried bags have a hard time wriggling out of the door due to the lack of a system. Once outside the terminal building, passengers have a difficult time getting a taxicab. Airport authorities, particularly the centurions at the Air Transportation Office, do not allow non-airconditioned cabs to join the queue outside the terminal, but they're also inutile in seeing to it that the number of airconditioned cabs or rent-a-car units available for passengers is enough. Some smart drivers take advantage of the scarcity by charging passengers exorbitant fares. You won't believe this, but a cabbie asked me to pay him P450 to Dacoville, while a rent-a-car driver told me the fare was P650, take it or leave it. A young passenger carrying a computer printer unit said he a cabbie wanted to exact from him P350 for a ride to Sandawa at Ecoland.
Incensed by the clear opportunism shown by the drivers, many disgusted passengers end up walking to the highway carrying their bags in order to get a ride. The passengers look more like evacuees escaping a war than newly arrived plane passengers at an international airport. Those who could not leave their heavy luggage are forced to pay porters to run to the highway and get cabs for them. The bedlam at the DIA makes it look anything but international. All because the guys there at the ATO don't seem to know how to manage an international facility. It's a shame.
There is a persistent talk that a cabal of smart operators is trying to establish a taxi or rent-a-car airport service monopoly in the DIA. These people, owners of a fleet of taxis and cars, are reportedly close to a city councilor and the fleet is being managed by a girlfriend of an airport official.
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If you are a frequent plane passenger, don't be surprised if you notice the delays in take-offs lately. The more than a dozen air traffic controllers in the DIA are reportedly on an intentional work slowdown in order to pressure management to give in to some demands. Foremost of the demands is the grant of "responsibility pay" equivalent to 15% of the air controllers' salaries.
This is big and management will not just grant this demand. The other demands have to do with some substandard facilities at the Air Traffic Control Tower, specifically the supposed brand new elevator which frequently bogs down. For four days sometime last month, the air controllers have to climb a total of nine floors because the elevator was out of order. The controllers suspect that the contraption is really not brand new, otherwise how explain the frequent bogdown.
Ask some maintenance people at the DIA and they'll tell you that plumbing and drainage are a big problem in the multi-billion facility. Everytime there is a downpour, the janitors reportedly have to double time preventing flooding in the CRs.
(May 20, 2004 issue)
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