I have traveled to a lot of countries and most of them I have ended up in an airport at one point or another and I can say with some level of certainty, that this is the least efficient airport I have ever been to. I have been here once before and it was fantastic… when it isn’t busy. Today they were busy and there is no way they are prepared for the upcoming high season
for starters, it should come as no surprise to the airline staff at the counters what time the customers are going to be turning up since there are only a handful of flights that depart from here each day (the flights departing for the foreseeable future can all fit on one screen.) That being said, every airline seems to depart at around the same time because the lines for each of them were astronomical. Only one of the airlines had self check-in kiosks.
not even that crowded... but the lines barely moved
Also, the person guarding the check-in line spoke no language but Spanish and was barely audible as well. Look, I get it, learning different languages is difficult, and I am not getting all judgmental about the fact that someone doesn’t speak English in a non English-speaking country, however, is being the gatekeeper of the line the best job for someone that ONLY speaks Spanish in a city that 90% of the people visiting it are tourists?
Moving on: At least they had absolutely enormous fans on the ceilings that were made by, and I promise you I am not making this up, “Big Ass Fans.”
The fun at our exceptionally slow moving check-in counters can only be matched by the snail’s pace encouraged by the security personnel. I couldn’t believe the line when I saw it, wrapped all the way around the exterior but then I looked up front and saw that there was one, ONE person checking all the ID’s of the hundreds of people trying to get on flights.
Then, once inside the x-ray area was just as awesomely slow. After we had been in line for more than an hour at this point it was announced that we were being divided up into lines by sex. One for women, one for men (extreme SJW's wouldn't know what to do, but certainly would have tweeted about it) because the X-ray machines just stopped working. Of course they were totally insistent that we take off EVERYTHING including flip flops to put them through the scanners anyway and no one is being stopped / questioned about anything. If you aren’t really looking for anything then why does this need to take 2 hours?
The flight I was on (and all the other ones) had to be delayed to accommodate the snail’s pace of security. Mine was an hour, most of the others were the same.
I’m not an airport efficiency expert but I think that when you are able to accurately predict the busy times on a schedule that is known many days in advance that perhaps it might be a good idea to coordinate your staffing needs around those times? I mean, this can’t be the first time this situation of multiple flights departing around the same time has occurred.
One thing I can say in Puerto Plato's defense is that the entire time the staff were extremely friendly and apologized for the delays. I am extremely happy that they understand that psychology enough to get this part correct because an attitude on the part of security could have easily made this mob of people who are being forced to stand in one line and then another and then another for hours on end really makes people upset and it could have gotten ugly.
Maybe i am just being aggro because I hate waiting and my last experience here was the opposite. Let's just hope they are having an off day and things will improve because I love everything else about this region and still highly recommend it, despite a foul ending.