THE stories coming out of the Guam airport last week are really troubling. It seems the air conditioning broke down – three out of the required four “chillers” were out of commission and under repair, or down for good. The place was said to be so hot during the day that some arriving visitors passed out.

Well, there’s a fine welcome to our fair island! The airport, which has the reputation of being the most well-heeled autonomous agency in the government of Guam, with lots of cash available, isn’t able to keep its air-conditioning system functioning.

Airport management has reportedly already spent more than $100,000 on space coolers and fans, just to keep employees and passengers reasonably comfortable. They rushed some of those over to the immigration arrivals area when incoming passengers began fainting.

Airport Manager Chuck Ada says they are floating a loan – there’s that word again – to fund the purchase of new chillers to replace the broken ones, which are more than 18 years old.

We wonder why this has suddenly become a crisis in a very large agency. We don’t blame Mr. Ada, who has only been on the job over there for a few months; but major equipment failures such as this are usually the result of an ineffective, or indifferent, preventive maintenance and periodic replacement program.

Preventive maintenance has never been GovGuam’s strong suit. Our government tends to pound vehicles and equipment into the ground before ordering replacements or replacement parts. If those airport chillers were in such precarious condition that three quarters of them broke down in just a few days, we suspect the fault lies with past airport boards and management, going back, say, 10 years or so. Decisions that should have been made then were not.

The A.B. Won Pat International Airport is governed by an appointed board of directors, most members of which have had little to no experience running airports. Seats on that board are earnestly sought after by the politically well-connected because the directors fly for free, or used to. Current Chairman Mike Ysrael has sharply curtailed the junkets.

Ysrael confirms that maintenance on the air-conditioning systems was definitely lacking when he came on the board. The cooling towers had not been cleaned for six years, and consequently were not cooling the water at all. Hot water was being returned to the chillers, hastening their demise.

The chillers should have been replaced, one at a time, when they reached the ripe old age – for air conditioners – of 10 years or so. To let a deteriorating situation get so far out of control that people are forced to function in a hot, muggy building is shameful.

We depend on our airport. Most of our visitors come through it, some of our largest employers are tenants, and the facility should be a showcase, an air-conditioned showcase.

We hope the current board and management can get on top of this situation, taking steps to ensure it never happens again.