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Mactan Cebu airport departure
The trip to Cebu would not be complete without taking new photos of Mactan Airport’s departure lounge. This was already expanded and improved a few years ago to accommodate the steady increase in the number of visitors to Cebu. It will soon be part of a major project to expand and upgrade the airport so perhaps this year will see the start of a transformation of sorts for the airport. Following are a few photos describing the departure area.
A crowded departure lounge greets travelers upon completing the final security check. The boxes at the right and near the garbage bins are containers for items prohibited from being hand carried to the aircraft.
Passengers tend to congregate near the eateries and shops even if their gates were a few minutes walk away.
Eateries and other concessionaires at the airport departure lounge include those offering Cebu lechon, dimsum, donuts, sandwiches and others.
There’s a small screen showing the status of flights. I think the airport should eventually have a bigger screen for such useful information.
The District Emporium specializes on locally made stuff including bags, accessories, crafts, footwear and other interesting items travelers can take home as souvenirs.
List of Cebu Pacific flights boarding at our gate and the one near it. These many flights meant a very crowded waiting area. You can see from the photo passengers standing and seated on the floor as they wait for their planes to arrive and be called for boarding.
Inside the departure area that was apparently all for CebPac flights, many seats are actually unoccupied by people. Many seats have bags or other stuff on them care of passengers who tend to hog seats for themselves.
Another look at the area for departing passengers.
I expect to be in Cebu at least one more time this year. We have a big conference coming up in September for the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies. This is a biannual international conference that is hosted by different Asian cities and which the Philippines will be hosting for a second time (The first conference was held in Manila in 1995.). We’ll see if there is a drastic change by then as the airport project is one that is tentatively listed as part of the technical tours for the conference.
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Mactan Cebu airport arrival
Arriving in Mactan, Cebu for our vacation, I wanted to get a few photos of the airport to have an updated post on the airport. It’s been a while since I had been to Cebu and I noticed my previous posts on the airport did not feature any photos upon arrival. I also wanted to take photos before major work is undertaken for the airport. Mactan Airport is already scheduled for expansion and upgrading under a PPP project with a consortium including local contractor Megawide and the company behind Indira Gandhi Airport in India. (This was the same project where other consortia that included companies behind Changi and Incheon Airports, top airports in the world, lost in the bidding.) Here are a few photos of the arrival area as well as some tips for getting a taxi to your hotel, resort or wherever you’re going from the airport.
An Air Asia plane on the tarmac of Mactan Cebu International Airport
We got to use the tube as we deplaned (unlike in Manila) and walked towards the baggage claim area.
Passengers taking their positions to pick up their luggage from the carousel.
Tourist information, hotels and other counters and booths greet arriving passengers at the airport.
Spacious marble-floored baggage claim area
Passengers waiting for their bags to come out of the carousel.
A friendly reminder to people claiming their baggage. The sign is in English, Japanese and Korean, indicative of the languages used by most travelers to and from Cebu. Similar to other airports in the Philippines, no one actually checks whether the baggage tags match the claim stubs with the passengers. Fortunately, people are honest and there have been none or minimal incidents of mistaken luggage.
To get to the taxi stand, you have to cross the driveway as you get out of the arrival area. There are signs to guide you to the taxi stand where airport security provides assistance to passengers as they board the taxis. I took this photo in a hurry so its blurry. The taxis stand is to the right and up a short flight of stairs. The arrow on the large sign in the photo show the way to a ramp to the taxi stand for travelers with heavy or a lot of luggage.
In the next posts: Getting a taxi at Mactan Airport and Mactan Airport departure.
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Caught (up) in traffic 