MANILA, Philippines -- Air passengers can look forward to faster and safer check-in and arrival procedures at Manila’s international airport.

Officials of government agencies servicing the airport recently gathered for the first Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) summit and revamped procedures to step up security monitoring and processing time of departing and arriving passengers.

Immigration, customs, quarantine, security and passenger assistance chiefs at the NAIA terminals met for a three-hour conference on Tuesday to better coordinate their operations to prevent passenger queuing and possible security breaches.

They were able to cut down passenger processing time from as long as three hours to the international standard of 45 minutes.

“We want [travellers to know] our policies and procedures so... [they] know what to expect, [they] are not bogged down by unpleasant surprises and there are lesser complaints,” said airport General Manager Alfonso Cusi.

Following the meeting, airport officials came up with an enhanced service program that would delegate security screening exclusively to airport police, prohibit security guards from doing tasks “that will infringe or interfere with the functions of immigration or airlines,” and bar non-passengers from customs and immigration counters to arrest the known practice of illegal facilitation.