I am writing this out of sheer frustration and helplessness.

Because of the negligence and incompetence of the personnel at the Skyview Lounge at the Naia Terminal 3, my wife and I, together with my sister (all senior citizens), missed our 7:35 p.m. flight to Siem Reap on Feb. 12. Here’s how the harrowing experience happened:

We arrived at the airport before 5 p.m., and, after checking in, going through Customs, Immigration, etc., we went directly to the Skyview Lounge. The first thing we asked the reception desk, after they wrote down the details of our flight that they got from our boarding passes, was whether they were going to announce when it was time to leave the lounge in time to catch our flight.

They said “yes.” With this assurance, we settled down and took our seats, since it wasn’t even 6 p.m. yet. All the time we were there, the announcements for the various Cebu Pacific flights to other countries were constantly being announced. But nothing about our flight.

At about 7:25 p.m., I approached one of the Skyview employees and asked if our flight was delayed since they had not announced anything about it. He again asked for my boarding pass and said he would check.

A minute or two later, an announcement came on that our flight was now boarding. We thanked the personnel at the reception desk and left to go to the gate. All this time, they never indicated to us that we were already running late. When we arrived at the gate, we found out, to our horror, that it was already closed.

It’s very clear that the personnel at the reception desk failed to make the announcement when it was time for us to board and that’s why we were late. And when they finally did announce, they never bothered to tell us that there was a problem.

To make matters worse, they didn’t even inform Cebu Pacific that we were on our way so that the plane could have waited a few more minutes. As it turned out, we were told by a Cebu Pacific personnel that the gate closed at 7:33 p.m.

We were willing to take another flight to Siem Reap, but Cebu Pacific said the next flight out was on Tuesday. That would have cut our vacation from five days to three.

Because of this fiasco, we were saddled with unrecoverable expenses. Aside from the cost of our tickets, we also had to pay a cancellation fee to our hotel in Siam Reap. All these could have been avoided if the personnel at the Skyview Lounge did not bungle their job.

I wrote Skyview a formal letter of complaint but was ignored. I then wrote the general manager of Naia hoping for at least a feedback from a responsible government official, but again never got a reply.

Maybe if they read it in the Inquirer I will finally get a reaction. —CONTRIBUTED