Tag Archives: asia travels
Singapore is a Southeast Asian country that borders Malaysia, Cambodia and Indonesia. Like so many of its neighbors, Singapore suffered through the toils of colonization and wars. It has managed to weather through it all and is one of the most prosperous countries in the entire world.
History of Singapore
Singapore’s establishment is credited to one man and that is Prince Parmeswara. He named the land ‘Singapura’ after the Sanskrit word for lion. Parmeswara was later on driven out of Singapore. He then went to establish the sultanate of Malacca which used Singapore as an integral trading post.
The British came to Singapore and made it a colony in an attempt to balance out the negative effect that Dutch colonies have imposed on the British trading routes in Southeast Asia.
Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles was a defining character in the formation of modern day Singapore as it was him who determined that the region would play a great role in the world trading.
After the British, Singapore fell under the short rule of the invading Japanese. After the Japanese surrendered, Singapore momentarily fell into a state of disarray, but soon recovered and went on to establish an independent government.
The Ninoy Aquino International Airport is the Philippines’ international entry passage going to Manila, Philippines. This has been a very important structure for the country because there are thousands of people who go in and out of the country as well as others who also go to local provinces by plane.
Because of so many passengers, slowly, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport or NAIA is already getting a big volume of passengers and is starting to be crowded with so many flights. In view of this fact, the NAIA management authorities have proposed the construction of NAIA 3.
NAIA 3 is already the third terminal which was constructed in 1997. It is designed as the biggest terminal in the NAIA complex with so many big controversies as well. The opening of the NAIA 3 was delayed so many times because of so many technical and safety concerns. Besides that, there was an issue that the project was mismanaged by the Estrada government. However, it was just recently opened to the public and began its partial operations on July 22, 2008.
On the first day of operations, there were 16 inbound and outbound domestic flights accommodated by the airport. These flights were from Philippine Airlines’ PAL Express, Cebu Pacific and Air Philippines. After two days, NAIA 3 is already fully operating and it was on August 1, 2008 when all Cebu Pacific flights, including international operations were transferred to the terminal. Currently, the operations here are smoothly ongoing for the flights accommodated by the airport.
Terminal 3 Structure Details
With the total area of 182,500 square meters, terminal 3 is built on the 63.5-hectare land on Villamor Air Base. NAIA terminal 3 is connected to a parking building that can accommodate 2,000 cars and this is separated from the outdoor parking area which could house additional 1,200 cars. Being the biggest terminal, it is intended to be of service to 33,000 passengers everyday or 6,000 passengers per hour at the most. For better service, NAIA 3 was constructed with an adjoining four level mall.
Tourism analysts predict that more airlines would fly to the Philippines especially now that the terminal 3 is fully operating. This is a good sign for the economy of the country because income from tourism will increase. Nonetheless, there are still limitations because the airport only has one runway which has been speculated to reach the full capacity by year 2010. Furthermore, the government has also started a relocation plan for most of international operations. The proposed development would be transferred to the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clark, Pampanga.
The NAIA 3 is built for the convenience of passengers, foreigners and locals alike. It has been designed perfectly with an area of 147,400 square meters. There are also 34 air bridges and 20 contact gates. This functionality allows the terminal to accommodate 28 planes anytime. Flight display monitors can be found all over the terminal so there is no way that a passenger will be left wondering when his flight would leave.
In addition to that, the passenger security and protection is guaranteed by the management of Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3.