[Igz]

Hi all,

I am planning to book a flight that arrives at 19:00 with Air Swift at T4 and I want to take the international flight to Hanoi from T3 with Cebu Pacific at 22:00.
Do you think this is reasonable?

From what I read online, 3 hours is an ok buffer for Manila airport.

Any thought?
Anyone flew recently?

Thanks!

[Chris in Makati]

It can vary depending on which day of the week you’re travelling, but a taxi between T4 and T3 would normally take 10 to 15 minutes (30 minutes worst case). As long as your AirSwift flight isn’t significantly delayed you should make it with time to spare.

There is a shuttle bus that runs between the airport terminals, but it often involves a lot of waiting around so I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re on a tight schedule. I suggest you look for one of the yellow metered taxis as you exit the terminal building.

Cebu Pacific check-in counters close 45 minutes before scheduled departure.

[Igz]

Thanks.

I would fly to Manila on Thursday afternoon, so 17:00 flight from El Nido. Flight would be begining of April. How is the situation then? Would you still say its ok to make the connection?

[Chris in Makati]

The 17:00 SwiftAir flight from El Nido is scheduled to arrive in Manila at 18:15. You shouldn’t have any problem making that connection.

[Inthesandpit]

For our trip to El Nido in January our travel guru arranged meet and greet in T3 and transfer to / from T4. Our outbound was fine even though CX were late inbound we were through immigration and in the car to T4 within 30 minutes as it was NYD transfer to T4 took about 10 minutes.

When we flew El Nido to MNL, our 1600 flight was delayed to 1800 and it was total chaos in El Nido airport, there were also supposedly fully booked services at 1700 and 1730, evidently they were an aircraft down with a maintenance issue (new AT72). Our connection was with Cathay Pacific out of T3 in MNL at 2055. I explained our situation but was met with ‘according to our booking process on line you should allow 4hrs transfer time’ ours was scheduled to be just 3 hours based on the scheduled arrival time in MNL. Luckily by finding a duty manager and by flashing my ATC ID card they found 2 seats on the 1700 departure which was lucky for us. Very lucky indeed. Although we departed 10 mins early at 1650, and the Capt. advised a flight time of 1hr we actually landed at 1730 after being vectored around the sky, held and fed into the arriving traffic. Taxying took a further 20 mins and the bus transfer from aircraft to terminal was another 15 mins. T4 was mayhem with so many flights arriving and only 1 baggage belt working, again luckily the ground staff grabbed our hold bags and gave them to us. we found our transfer and then 25 mins to T3 in the evening traffic. Taxy queues at T4 appeared long and very disorganized – there seemed to be no queuing just grab what you can.
At T3 there were queues to enter the terminal as you have your bags scanned and it seemed everyone was being searched. We got to the CX check-in desk at about 1915, and in the lounge about 10 mins later. I observed on Flight Radar our original flight actually left El Nido at 1830 and landed at 1950, so if we had stayed on that one we would not have made the CX connection and onward to DXB.

So I guess as long as Air Swift is on time and you don’t get any air delays you should make it, but build in a little buffer.

El Nido is a charming little airport but can get very busy with no catering or beverage facilities to speak of. If you are staying in the El Nido Group hotels there is a dedicated lounge for those customers.

[Inthesandpit]

Apologies in my last post the arrival in MNL was 1830 NOT 1730 durgghhh – typo on my part and I cant seem to edit the original post

[Igz]

You are right, my mistake. Flight is at 17:35 and scheduled to arrive at 18:55

[rferguson]

I recently flew through MNL for the first time ever and had a same terminal transit (PR —-PR Terminal 2).

When I boarded the brand new Philippine Airlines A350 at LHR I was REALLY impressed. The hard product was superb (vantage XL), the cabin crew were ALL exceptional (genuinely hospitable versus what I often find as a forced sense of hospitality on some other asian/M.E carriers) and really impressive food and beverage. I was thinking to myself WOW the alliances will be lining up to snap up the ‘new’ PR.

Then I reached MNL….no offence to anyone but what a dump. I feel sorry for PR as they are making huge strides and have little power over their home hub but they will never be able to be a CX or SQ with the facility they operate from.

Despite the terminal being old and run down and their flagship ‘Mabuhay lounge’ (admittedly this is within PR’s domain) appalling the terminal simply is not designed for transit passengers. Even though I received my boarding pass all the way through to my final destination and it was on one ticket when I landed in MNL you follow the signs to transit where I imagined it would just be a simple case of show onward boarding pass, go through security, back in the terminal to the luxury (ahhem) of the lounge. But no. You end up in the immigration hall and have to line up and register at the PR Transit counter where they tap away at the system and stamp your onward boarding card. Then it’s off to the transit security lane. Well this is obviously an afterthought. It’s one security lane off to the side where you then take the stairs or lift up to departures. But here’s the weirdest thing – when you take the stairs up you emerge at a gate. Which is also used for departures (a bus gate). So, whenever that gate is in operation for departures no transit passengers are allowed to pass (to understandably not mix the departing and transit passengers). So in my case I arrive from London, went to the transit counter, had my documents checked, was told that the transit gate was actually being used for a departure for the next ‘half hour or so’ and to sit and wait.

[Author]

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