NAIA Terminal 3 hosts the domestic flights of Cebu Pacific and PAL Express (formerly Air Philippines and Air Phil Express). PAL now also flies out of T3 for major cities like Cagayan De Oro, Legazpi, Puerto Princesa and Tacloban, where PAL and PAL Express flights seem to have merged and are quite difficult to tell by the aircraft. The difference becomes clear when one boards the plane and sees no Mabuhay Class seats for PAL Express and seats have the leatherette covers (similar to Ceb Pac’s) instead of the more classy fabric in PAL planes.

Hallway to the boarding gates – there are many shops and restaurants to choose from where one can have a meal or drink before a flight.

This shop is packaged like the higher end duty free shops on international terminals. There’s a Krispy Kreme donut stall that’s quite popular as pasalubong.

A typical cafe at NAIA T3

More cafes give passengers a lot of choices for where they might want to get their beverage, meal or snack.

And still more cafes…

Large signs provide adequate guidance for passengers.

The long walk – T3 is a linear terminal with gates spread along either wing of the building, which means passengers would have to walk some distance to and from their gates for departures and arrivals.

It’s summer in the Philippines, so there are more flights and passengers than usual. I was at the terminal for a 0440 flight to Tacloban and there were already a lot of people waiting for their respective flights to destinations such as Cebu, Iloilo, Bacolod, Dumaguete and Davao.

Passengers at Gate 118 seated along a corridor that also features a non-functioning “walkalator” or moving walkway. Such walkways should help passengers move more conveniently and swiftly to and from their gates but all are currently not operating (for one reason or another).

Fellow passengers at Gate 119 waiting for our boarding call

There are many television sets at T3 where passengers can catch the latest news on cable or, in this case, a replay of an NBA Playoff game.

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