ILOILO – After the country’s air traffic took a sudden halt on Sunday, Jan. 1, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) advised affected passengers to contact or coordinate with their airlines for flight updates.
According to CAAP-Iloilo Airport terminal supervisor Art Parreño, 20 flights were put on hold on Sunday at the Iloilo Airport in Cabatuan town when the Air Traffic Management Center (ATMC) at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), which serves as the facility for controlling and overseeing all inbound and outbound flights and overflights within the Philippine airspace, went down due to a technical glitch, resulting in the loss of communication, radio, radar, and internet.
A total of 2,703 passengers were affected, mostly on routes from Iloilo to Manila and Iloilo to Cebu.
Below is the breakdown of the number of canceled flights per airline and the affected passengers:
- Philippine Airlines – eight flights with 806 passengers
- Cebu Pacific – nine flights with 1,399 passengers
- Air Asia – three flights with 498 passengers
Parreño said although passengers crowded the airport terminal, operations resumed by 10:30 p.m. on Sunday as the issue at the ATMC in NAIA was fixed around 5:50 p.m.
“‘Yong mga stranded passengers, some of which nagpauli, iban nagpabilin kag nagtulog sa airport kagab-i and iban to nagpa-rebook.
Depende sa passengers if ano ila option nga pilion, either re-route or refund or rebooking,” Parreño told Panay News yesterday morning.
Philippine Airlines had two special flights yesterday morning for affected passengers going to Metro Manila.
Cebu Pacific and Air Asia also catered to affected passengers with available seating on succeeding flights.
Parreño said airlines were open for queries.
“Sa tanan nga apektado nga mga pasahero, please stay tuned, keep on monitoring para ma-update kamo and also try to connect with your airlines, sa inyo nga airlines of choice, para magkuha sang latest information,” he said.
Transportation secretary Jaime J. Bautista announced on Sunday at around 9:49 a.m. that the ATMC went down due to a power outage.
“The primary cause identified was a problem with the power supply and the degraded uninterrupted power supply, which had no link to the commercial power and had to be connected to the latter manually. The secondary problem was the power surge due to the power outage, which affected the equipment,” he added.
The transport chief further said the ATMC resumed partial operations with limited capacity at 4 p.m. and normal operations resumed as of 5:50 p.m., while equipment restoration is still ongoing.
He added that the DOTr likewise liaised with the airline partners for the provision of food, refreshments, transportation, lodging, and accommodation for all the canceled flights, which are to be provided by the airlines free of charge to all affected passengers. (With a report from DOTr)/PN
