PHILIPPINE NEWS SERVICE — THE Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) is now at par with world-class airports in terms of quality service being extended to the traveling public.
Yesterday, the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) under its general manager Alfonso Cusi received the ISO certification for NAIA, which services most foreign airline companies flying routes to various destinations worldwide.
With the said certification, Cusi said the traveling public could definitely expect more positive changes in terms of quality service and improved operations at the NAIA, even as he vowed that such will be replicated in NAIA Terminals 2 and 3.
“To endeavor into the ISO certification process signifies the desire for continuing commitment to quality. It is a vehicle to identify less quality performance and correct it as fast as possible. It is a process-based standard that measures how time and again, organizations meet the needs of their customers,” Cusi said.
He added: “Facing up to the needs of passengers everyday is already a challenge in itself; standardizing procedures and processes for a facility with an annual passenger traffic of 7.43 million a year is even a greater challenge. But as one family, we braved it and now we are reaping the fruit of our harvest. I feel very proud of this achievement.”
Tirso Serrano, assistant general manager for airport development, said the ISO certification was achieved through the Quality Management System (QMS) put in place to ensure quality compliance to the established mandatory procedures in the manual.
“It aims for passenger confidence with the predictability of the processes in the procedures geared toward passenger convenience”, he said, adding that the certification was awarded after the Phase 1 audit of the passenger facilitation processes,” Serrano added.
This effort, he said, was undertaken with thirteen (13) airport agencies whose functions directly involve passenger handling.
Phase 2 of the certification process involved the audit of MIAA support services to the Phase 1 process namely engineering, operations, safety and security and finance and administration.
Last year, the MIAA spearheaded the collaboration towards ISO certification with the following agencies in support: Bureau of Immigration (BI), Bureau of Customs (BOC), Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ), Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA), Office for Transportation Security (OTS), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), Department of Environment & Natural Resources (DENR), Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) and the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI).
“Based on the Service Level Agreement (SLA) signed by the different agencies operating at the NAIA, we have the commitment of our NAIA family to maintain and continue the quality service at ISO levels. As a customer-oriented organization, we will continue to find ways to understand their current and anticipate their future needs as well as respect and attempt to exceed their expectations,” Cusi said.