Art appreciation in Singapore

With the 2025 Christmas holiday behind us, my husband and I chose to time our holiday after most Filipinos have returned from the almost two-week vacation, when airlines and hotels slightly drop their prices before they again expect higher bookings for the Chinese New Year holiday in February.

- MARIANNE GO

But contrary to our expectation that NAIA would be less congested, especially for a morning flight, we were surprised that quite a large number of Filipinos were still flying out of NAIA Terminal 3, and perhaps like us, thought that there would be less congestion.

The check-in counters still had long lines of passengers, and immigration was long, with snaking lines and families crowding the senior and PWD counter to try to shortcut the process, so much so that an immigration officer had to weed out some families with more than four members accompanying a generally robust senior or PWD family member who otherwise looked quite healthy and did not seem or act disabled.

I was also surprised that the wheelchair service (racket?) continues, with some richlooking and not-so-old ladies insisting to be accommodated first for check-in and boarding, but are perfectly capable once they are on the plane.

While the departure lounges are now quite cool, actually even chilly with the humongous air conditioning units, NAIA T3 clearly needs more restrooms as there were very long lines, particularly for the women's toilets.

Our flight to Singapore via Singapore Airlines was fully booked with a lot of Filipinos. However, we soon realized that the majority of the Filipinos on our flight were actually OFWs working and residing in Dubai or in Europe, and were going home after vacationing in the Philippines with their families. In fact, most of them had resident cards, and thus, my husband and I were also asked if we were residents of Singapore or Dubai.