Tacloban Airport shut down for over 6 hours; 4 flights for 850 re-set

Photo from wikipedia.org website

TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte — The flights of at least 850 passengers had to be re-set after the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) temporarily suspended the operations of the Daniel Z. Romualdez (DZR) Airport here on Thursday.

The CAAP suspended the airport operation from 2:28 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday to pave the way for the repair of the potholes found on the runway.

The different airline companies were informed ahead of the temporary closure, which affected four flights to Manila and one to Cebu.

Allan Cahingcoy, assistant manager of the CAAP, operator of the DZR Airport, said the 20 potholes of at least one feet in diameter were caused by incessant rains in the past several days.

“We will try to finish the repair work by 9 p.m. today (Thursday) so we can resume by tomorrow morning. While the potholes were small, we decided to repair them for the safety of the aircrafts and their passengers,”the CAAP official said in a mobile phone interview.

The suspension of operations at the DZR Airport, Eastern Visayas’ biggest airport, has happened before due to potholes along its 2.2 km runway.

DZR sustained major damage after Tacloban was hit by Supertyphoon “Yolanda”
in 2013.  SFM