Guiuan offers airport but is turned down

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines—A mayor in Eastern Samar has offered the airport in his town as an alternative gateway to the region while  the runway at the Daniel Z. Romualdez (DZR) Airport in Tacloban City, Leyte, undergoes repairs.

Mayor Christopher Sheen Gonzales of Guiuan town said the airport was big enough to accommodate large jets like the Airbus or Boeing, which cannot land at the DZR while repairs are in progress.

“We are offering our airport here in Guiuan in the meantime that the Tacloban airport is under repair. This will somehow help passengers,” Gonzales said in a phone interview.

But Efren Nagrama, Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines Eastern Visayas (CAAP-8) area manager, turned down the offer, saying the Guian airport lacked the necessary navigational facilities.

“That is a good offer. But there are limitations like lack of navigational aids. Our issue here is the safety of our passengers,” Nagrama said.

Aside from this, Guiuan is “quite too far”from Tacloban, which is 80.7 kilometers away.

The Guiuan airport has a 2,094-meter runway, almost as long as the DZR’s 2,100 meters.

The airport was used during the Super Typhoon “Yolanda” relief operation where big planes such as the military’s C-130s landed. The airport was built by the Americans during World War II.

At present, the Guiuan airport is not being used by commercial planes.

The rehabilitation could take more than six months but Nagrama promised the work would be rushed in time for the visit of Pope Francis in January next year.