President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. apologized for the temporary shutdown of the Philippine airspace on New Year’s Day, particularly for OFWs who have missed their flights.
“I’m sorry, we have to apologize to our kababayans, especially those who came from abroad dahil limitado ang kanilang bakasyon…” Marcos said.
At least 282 flights to and from Manila were either cancelled, diverted, or delayed due to a power outage at the Air Traffic Management Center (ATMC).
Around 56,000 passengers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport were affected by the incident.
Marcos stated that he had discussed measures with concerned officials to ensure that the incident does not happen again. Manuel Tamayo, director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, explained that one of the uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) failed at around 9:50 a.m. on Sunday and backup systems were not immediately available.
“Right now we can say the system was down for about six and a half hours on January 1 at nakabalik naman kaagad. Ngayon ang pinag-usapan namin para hindi na mangyari ulit,” he added.
Once the system was reconnected to the power supply, there were warnings released due to over voltage as 380 volts were coming in instead of 220 volts, which also affected the very small aperture terminal (VSAT). The system was partially restored at 4 p.m. on Sunday and normal operations resumed at 5:50 p.m.
