OCULAR INSPECTION President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. leads an inspection of Naia Terminal 3 on Friday, following a power outage and technical glitch that left some 60,000 passengers stranded and 361 flights canceled on New Year’s Day. —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Friday apologized to the thousands of passengers stranded on New Year’s Day after power outages and a technical glitch led to the cancellations and delays of flights in and out of Manila.
“So now, I’m sorry. We, of course, we have to apologize to our kababayans who, especially those who came from abroad because their vacation is limited,” Marcos told reporters in an interview after he inspected Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Terminal 3. Despite the airport chaos, Marcos believed that airport authorities and his Cabinet officials “have done a reasonably good job,” saying that “six hours is rather a short time considering how much [was] needed to be done to get the system back up into working condition.”
‘Back to normal’
He said operations at Naia were now “back to normal” but he said the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) must have “a proper backup system” to prevent similar incidents happening in the future.
“That’s why we are asking for your forgiveness. But we’ll do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he assured travelers.
Proper backup system
He ordered Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista to “fast-track” all negotiations for the upgrade of equipment at the country’s airports.
“What I told [Transportation] Secretary Jimmy [Bautista] is to make sure that we fast-track all of—whatever negotiations we have with our—with the equipment suppliers who can help us with the upgrades, for the software and the hardware of our equipment,” he said.
“And beyond that, is to have a proper backup system so if the whole system fails, like it did on Jan. 1, we have a complete system ready to go,” he added.
On New Year’s Day, about 56,000 passengers were stranded at Naia and other airports in the country after 361 flights to and from Manila were either canceled, diverted or delayed.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have called for an investigation of the fiasco.