This large runway small terminal airport is located on the former Clark Airforce Base in the Philippines and is less than a ten minute drive from the major bar area in Angelese City.

http://www.clarkairport.com/frame.php

The terminal here is real small and the facilities are limited. But it is extremely quick to get in and out of and oh so close to a real mongering paradise. International cities served by this airport are Singapore (Tiger Airways), KL, Kota Kinabalu (Air Asia), Hong Kong (CR Airways), and Seoul (Asiana). Regional destinitation served by SEAir, Cebu Pacific, and Asian Spirit.

When arriving there can be a little bit of a bottleneck at immigration. So if you are arrving on Air Asia or Tiger and you don't get an emergency row exit seat, grab a seat near the rear of the plane. Here they utilize both the rear and front exits. This way you can race past all the extended slow moving large PI families who will invariable fill up the front of the plane. Likewise, when entering the plane for departure you can streak to the rear entry to get a quick shot at the emergency row seats which have much more leg room.

After clearing customs you will pick your bag up off the longest baggage claim conveyor belt you will ever see. Pick up your bags and head to customs. I would say there is 50% chance you will be asked to open a bag. If you are traveling with a Philipinno make that 80%.

After exiting there is a tiny area, with a car rental desk, a booth for the Clarkton Hotel, one for Holiday inn, and a currency exchange desk with lousy rates. There is no ATM here, however, once you exit outside there is one to your immediate left. I have never seen anyone actually get money out of that thing. Welcome to the Philippines.

If you haven't arranged you an airport pick-up get the attention one of the dispatchers (guys wearing a plastic tag around their neck) and he will get a taxi over for you. The taxi fare to Angeles city should be 200 pesos fixed. At least that is what I paid my last three visits. Before that the taxi monopoly would try and get 300 pesos. I suspect the airport authority has cracked down on this gouging. Anyway make sure you establish this price before you get in.

If you are departing from the airport. There is no need to arrive more than an hour before your flight. I would also call ahead to make sure the flight hasn't been delayed, as this is a very boring place to have to kill a couple of hours. When you checkin grab in immigration form. After getting your boarding pass you will need to go to the airport departure tax desk and pay 500 (up from 350) pesos. Then proceed to immigration, once you have cleared immigration there is one more security check point to cross. Inside the "terminal" area is a small duty free, and a few kiosks and places to get a snack. Don't expect much. Then there is a large seating section of really crappy seats to wait for you flight. Try and get a seat up front close to the door. It will help you be one of the first in the stampede to get on the plane.

The best things about this airport is that it's small, easy to get in and out of, and five minutes from hevean.

>there is a large seating section of really crappy seats to wait for you flight

They must have asked the folks from Manila NAIA where they got their crappy seats.

Sounds like things may have improved since my visit, as it was the worst airport I've ever been to. The slowest, most incompetent baggage handlers on the planet were unloading our Tiger flight from Macau. After being the very last person through a very long wait at immigration, none of our bags had come out yet. Unbelievable. Then there were no taxis and no dispatchers. I bribed a hotel van that was there to pick someone else up to let me tag along for the ride to Fields.

On departure, they make you send your checked luggage and carryon luggage through the same x-ray machine. So the carryon with all my camera equipment got jumbled up with all the balikbayan boxes, and they didn't give a fuck. Then I had to stand in the check-in line for an hour because there were only two clerks to handle the whole flight and everyone in front of me was a family with heaping carts of boxes and suitcases. These people travel like refugees.

When I finally got to the seating area, the section next to the window was roped off for families only, to "protect children" as someone explained to me. So when boarding time came, all the "families" were already at the front of the line. I got hosed.

Haha, no it hasn't changed that much. Still lots of imcompetence running rampant. But it's still much better than NAIA as the imcompentence is constrained by the small scale. It's nice that you can show up foran hour before your flight and know you will get on, rather than having to show up atleast two and a half hours prior to departure. Also, they now usually have three or four immigration agents and that does move faster.

For Tiger flights, they still let the families on first, which means the first half a dozen rows will be jammed with pamily. The good news is that given the pack rat nature and it takes forever for them to get seated. That is why the smart move is to enter the rear of the flight and head for Row 12. This is the second emergency row with lots of leg room and the seats recline (unlike row 11.) Also, when arriving, if you don't have theexit row seats go sit towards the rear. Once again you can exploit the slow pamilies and exit the rear and be number one at the immigration line. I would these days I am always less than an hour from exiting the plane to brushing my teeth in the hotel room. I will take that anyday on an international flight.

What a great place! Now, this is NOT an airport you go to for the facilities.. why? cause they really have none.. One point of disclosure.. I've only flown on OZ's 00:55am departure, so there may be more available in the AM when the other LLC's operate than at night..
What I do like is that from the time I get dropped off right at the terminal entrance door to the time I'm sitting right at the gate waiting area is a total of :15 to :20 maximum.. that's check-in, passport control, Philippine airport security, airline secondary security.. everything.. Now THAT's what I like..
I usually get a Sub Delish to go, or I may run over and get my dinner "to go" from Margarita's.. If I have a beverage with me, I sit down right after passport control *BUT* before security and eat there.. there's usually some chairs and a few small tables there.. that way I have no "liquids" problems at the security check point.. the x-ray girls can see me and usually laugh, but hey, once I get on the plane I'm full, no thirsty and ready for 4hrs of shut eye before early morning arrival in ICN.. As one side note too, your total departure "taxes" (for non-Phil nationals) is also cheaper out of CRK.. 750P from MNL, only 600P from CRK.. that pays for my last San Mig light before I leave!

(Message edited by gopbi1 on January 10, 2009)

I flew the CRK to BKKon Cebu-Pacific today and it was efficient by PI standards. Plane took off on time, they gave me an assigned seat at 8D. Got to the airport leaving Lewis Grand at 11:30 byt 11:45 on the plane at 1:00 take off 1:30 and BKK y 3:40 BKK time out the BKK door at 4:15 at PBR in Pattaya by 6:00 even thought my car was 1`5 minuites late.

The round trip ticket was $240.00 all charges included and I learned from another board member, I think IAS that if you used Citibank vurtual card number Cebu-Pacific accepts the credit card on line for booking.

All in all in my opinion a great improvement over going to MNL for a flight.

This is the way Clark looked the last time it was a smoothly functioning airport.




Once the Pilipinos took over it fell apart.

Vintage photo from the 70s it looks like.

Could be from the 80's as well. I believe the fighter wing out of Clark was flying F-4's up until the base closure in 1991.

Mura you are correct sir. It's circa 1982. They had F4s there in 1990 althiough they were mostly replaced by F15s;



Of course then came 1991 and we all know what happened. I still marvel at this picture and I hear this was a pre- eruption cloud not the main blast.




An interesting pic of Pinatubo pre and post eruption taken from same spot on base. Pre eruption . I will download the post next . Guess I screwed it up somehow.





(Message edited by Khun_Mor on January 10, 2009)

What a moron I am tonight . This is the pre eruption picture.. The first one was the post eruption obviously.



Clark during ash fall. They said the ash and pyroclastic flow was 40 foot deep in some places.



(Message edited by Khun_Mor on January 10, 2009)

(Message edited by Khun_Mor on January 10, 2009)

Ok here's the two pics superimposed with the post pic shaded in green


I will give up now and leave you all in peace.

There's a great 3 - part video on YouTube that covers the Pinatubo eruption from the Air Force's perspective. It's really pretty good with original footage. I highly recommend.

Here's part one, you're on your own for parts two and three.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMe0VPQftsc&feature=PlayList&p=56923D61F5E686F9&index=0&playnext=1

EA

Nice video . Thanks EA .

They have some pretty good pics here of Pinatubo. http://www.clarkab.com/clark_photo_above.htm

Go here http://www.clarkab.com/ and see some great pictures of the base and off base areas circa the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's.

BTW, the F-15's in the pictures above w/ the Cope Thunder paint hangars in the background (I know this because I worked in the building next to the hangars from 82-86) I believe the F-15's were from Kadena as Kadena AB had the tail code ZZ and Clark's tail code was PN.

(Message edited by abramom on January 11, 2009)