Almost 60,000 passengers have been stranded at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport due to a technical glitch which shut down the busiest hub on New Year’s Day. At least 360 flights have been cancelled, delayed or diverted.
Among the inconvenienced passengers is tycoon Manny Pangilinan, owner of PLDT who tweeted that he had been flying from Tokyo to Manila when the plane was diverted to Haneda due to “radar and navigation facilities” going down.
“Six hours of useless flying but inconvenience to travelers and losses to tourism and business are horrendous. Only in the PH. Sigh,” Pangilinan said in his tweet.
We’re told radar and navigation facilities at NAIA down.I was on my way home fm Tokyo – 3 hours into the flight, but had to return to Haneda. 6 hours of useless flying but inconvenience to travelers and losses to tourism and business are horrendous. Only in the PH. Sigh.
— Manny V. Pangilinan (@iamMVP) January 1, 2023
Two main reasons have been reported by NAIA and CAAP: power outage and a technical glitch.
Power outage
Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said in a statement that the outage was the result of the unprecedented failure of both primary and secondary power supplies in NAIA.
“The primary cause identified was a problem with the power supply and the degraded uninterrupted power supply which had no link to the commercial power and had to be connected to the latter manually. The secondary problem was the power surge due to the power outage which affected the equipment,” said Sec. Bautista.
Due to the power outage, the air traffic management centre, which controls inbound and outbound flights, “went down,” resulting in the loss of communication, radio, radar and internet.
Technical glitch
“The secondary problem was the power surge due to the power outage which affected the equipment,” he said.
The jolt in air traffic prompted business leaders and senators to act on the aging air gateway of the country.
Sen. Grace Poe has released a statement on Monday, stating that there will be a senate hearing to determine who will be held liable and identify solutions to avoid further malfunctions at NAIA.
What a way to welcome the new year at our country’s airports. We will conduct an inquiry to find out who is liable and how we can avoid this from happening again.#NAIA #AirTrafficControl #Airport #MIAA pic.twitter.com/M5HthZo0Y6
— GRACE POE (@SenGracePOE) January 2, 2023
In a tweet, Poe said that the concern is a “national security concern.”
“We will conduct an inquiry and direct them to submit a full report of what caused the supposed glitch and power outage. This is a national security concern. Thousands of lives depend on the efficiency and competence of CAAP,” said Sen. Poe.
In a press conference, Transport Secretary Jaime Bautista said that the government needs more than P13 billion to upgrade its air traffic management system, which he says is 10 years behind that of Singapore.
“With what happened today, mapipilitan tayong madaliin ‘yung paggawa o pagkakaroon ng backup system for our [Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Systems for Air Traffic Management] system,” said Bautista.
To ease the pressure in NAIA, the country plans to build multi-billion dollar airports in Manila’s surrounding provinces, including Cavite and also in Bulacan, which is due to start operations in 2027.
