NAIA needs ‘wellness package,’ says lawmaker
FILE PHOTO: Passengers queue at Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 in Pasay City as they wait to board their flights following the resumption of airport operations on Monday, Jan. 2, 2023. INQUIRER file photo / RICHARD A. REYES
MANILA, Philippines — The government should do a “complete checkup” of Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) to come up with a “wellness package” to address its problems, House Deputy Speaker Rep. Ralph Recto said on Wednesday after the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) asked for P1 billion to buy power generators for the country’s international gateway.
“The Department of Transportation said Naia will undergo an electrical system audit. If there are many ailments, why not a complete checkup so that it can be addressed properly?” Recto said in a statement. “Whatever work to be done should be submitted as one package, so the remedies will not be several band aid of cures, but a wellness package,” he added.
Airport officials came under fire anew after a nearly eight-hour outage hit Naia Terminal 3 on May 1, affecting almost 10,000 passengers whose flights were either canceled or delayed.
Recto said the MIAA’s appeal for additional funds should be treated as an “urgent request,” although he was doubtful the price of power generators would reach P1 billion.
“Even if this light-bulb moment had come too late, after the airport had been hit with electrical crashes, it should be treated as an urgent request. Every time Naia is hit with a blackout, the nation gets a black eye,” he said.
But according to Recto, “if the promised power system audit would validate that request, then [the] government should buy it, but not necessarily in the amount floated. Panic buying is the number one procurement sin.”
Airport outage
On New Year’s Day, a technical glitch due to a power outage caused the Communications, Navigation and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) system to go offline, resulting in the shutdown of the country’s airspace. This was after one of two uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems malfunctioned when one of its cooling blowers conked out.
To give way to the replacement of the faulty UPS, the country’s airspace will again shut down on May 17, between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m.
Bryan Co, MIAA senior assistant general manager, said the maintenance activity had been coordinated last week to give airline companies enough “lead time” to fix flight schedules and inform passengers.
“These are all proactive efforts to make sure that the CNS/ATM is reliable as an offshoot of what happened earlier this year,” Co said, referring to the Jan. 1 aviation mess that affected around 56,000 passengers and 361 domestic and international flights to and from Manila.
