T3... ho hum!!!

The much touted Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3 has opened up amidst much fanfare. I was one of the "privilaged" Day 1 passengers at the terminal (my flight back from KL landed in the new T3).

Firstly - what's the big deal about T3? I'm not sure really. It's just a big big happening in Singapore!! For background, the last terminal opened in Changi was the Budget Terminal a couple of years ago. It's for those cheapskates who don't want to pay their whole airfare. They want cheap cheap. Anyway - there was so much fanfare around this that they ran a national contest to name the terminal. The question that appeared on the front page of Straits Times was "What should the new Budget Terminal be named?". 4 weeks later a winning entry was announced. The winner was Alec Smart (real name will not be disclosed to protect the identitiy of the perpetrator). His entry - BUDGET TERMINAL! "Budget terminal" was the winning entry in a contest to name the FUCKING budget terminal!!! How fucking stupid is that!!!

Thankfully they stayed away from this kinda stunt for T3. They had T1. Then a cooler, more expensive T2. Then they pulled up this 3rd terminal, they thought long and hard, even considered a contest - an international one this time - but then, very wisely might I add, they settled on T3.

So I landed in T3 on the 9th of Jan. And I thought it was very very ordinary.

Firstly - Our plane happily taxied around for a good 20 minutes. And it was stop start. It was like driving through Orchard in a sea of crazy Chinese lady drivers juggling shopping bags and cell phones on a not so idle Sunday afternoon. Not that I was driving in this case, but you get the drift! This in turn had a very interesting impact on the general diaspora on the flight. Everytime we had a stop (in the context of the stop-start taxi-ing), about 14 people in my immediate vicinity felt the need to stand and open the overhead compartments. Only to be jerked back into their seats the next minute. It got tiresome after it happened 3 times. Got kinda old.

Then - they replicated some of the disasters of Manila and Mumbai. When you get out of your flight you walk right across the paths of some other flight boarding. Mass confusion ensues. Some people boarding a flight get swayed by the crowd and end up at baggage collection wondering what a quick trip they had. Others who've just gotten off their flight find themselves accosted onto another flight headed to Malta or Mogadishu or Mozambique for crying out loud!

Then, when you finally battle your way to baggage reclaim, there's no baggage there. I'd put this down to teething trouble, but Singapore teaches you to expect perfection the first time and everytime thereafter. Our baggage came in only after half an hour. During this time, I made friends with the nose-digging aunty who was sitting next to me through the flight. She spoke excellent Singlish (a language I love) and was complaining about the government while looking for nasal treasures. Very pleasing.

After that, I had to head back to the T2 carpark (coz I'd kinda parked my car there - I know that was obvious, but just wanted to be safe!). This was a trek and then some! Trudged to the other end of T3 for the skytrain. This in itself was an unusually bumpy ride. These monorail thingies are meant to be quite smooth and quiet. This one wasn't. Got to T2 - but the wrong end of it. Trekked all the way to the other end to finally get into my car and get out of there.

All in all, painful. Didn't quite get how this was better than T2 or any other airport terminal I've ever been in etc etc! But then again, I headed to Manila yesterday and it made me like T3 just a touch more.