Departing from Caticlan airport

I love heading over for a quick trip to Boracay Island when I am visiting the Philippines. But what an unusual airport Caticlan is, the arrival and departure terminals are at opposing ends of the runway - there was no arrival terminal when I last visited and that was unusual.

Upon disembarking from the aircraft, passengers are loaded onto buses and driven around outside of the airport and through the township before reentering the airport again to reclaim baggage before climbing on another bus only to be driven to the ferry terminal. Because this is the staging point to Boracay Island, the airline contracts services from the airport terminal to the ferry terminal.

On departure, the terminal is located diagonally opposed to arrival so not only is a bus required to travel to the aircraft loading area but the bus must drive down the runway as no taxiway or service roads exist. This required us to wait in the bus for two aircraft to land before a convoy of vehicles heads over to the aircraft loading and refueling area. 

I wonder why they can't build a service alongside the runway? There are enough aircraft departures and arrivals to warrant this as this is a major domestic and international tourist destination. This could be all too premature, Caticlan Airport was still under construction when I was last there in June 2017. It could well be just construction induced issues that could be soon sorted when the airport moves to full service, so I won't be too critical just yet.

Now that Borcay Island has been closed to everybody by order of the president, this may well give workers time to upgrade the airport without constant interuption from tourists. I will be returning to Boracay Island some time in the future when the president opens the island again - that I know.