ILOILO City – While this city, Iloilo province and the rest of Western Visayas transition to modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) today, all airports remain closed to commercial flights such as the Iloilo Airport in Cabatuan, Iloilo.
There has been no order yet from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines’ (CAAP) central office, Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) lifting the Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) that suspended commercial flights.
“Only when the NOTAM is lifted can commercial flights resume,” said CAAP-Iloilo Terminal Supervisor Art Parreño yesterday.
Classified as an international airport, the Iloilo Airport is the first airport in both Western Visayas and the island of Panay to be built to international standards. It is also considered to be the primary gateway into the region.
The airport opened to commercial traffic on June 14, 2007 with then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo inaugurating it.
Commercial flights to and from Iloilo were suspended in March this year when the community quarantine was enforced to curb the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Parreño, however, made it clear the Iloilo Airport accommodates “sweeper flights” transporting stranded Western Visayans such as overseas workers back to the region.
The Iloilo Airport is also open to flights transporting any of the following:
* healthcare workers responding to medical emergencies
* members of the Philippine National Police and all branches of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
* persons travelling for urgent medical reasons
* persons traveling back to the province on common carriers and/or transport for the conduct of trade, delivery of social/humanitarian services, fishing/marine activities, scientific/academic pursuits, and such other essential purposes, other than the carriage of passengers
Over the weekend, three airlines – Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific Air and Air Asia – announced they were gradually resuming commercial flights before June 10.
Parreño said the advisories were part of the airlines’ “restart flight plans” but that Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) executive director Carmelo Arcilla issued an advisory to airlines to not yet restart selling tickets for June 1.
This was because the IATF had not yet approved the proposed domestic services of airlines for the first week of June, said Parreño.
Arcilla’s advisory read: “Please be informed that the IATF is yet to approve the routes for domestic air services proposed by airlines for the resumption of domestic operations in the first week of June 2020. Consequently, airlines are hereby advised to cancel their flights on June 1.”
AirAsia announced on May 31 it was gradually resuming domestic flights on June 3 and international flights on July 1.
On the other hand, the Philippine Airlines announced it was resuming domestic flights on June 8 instead of its earlier announced date of June 1.
Cebu Pacific Air, meanwhile, announced on Saturday it was resuming limited domestic flights on June 2 while its international flights remained suspended.
Parreño assured the public that CAAP-Iloilo has started preparing for the eventual resumption of commercial flights.
There would be thermal scanners at the arrival and departure areas to check people’s temperatures (fever being one of the symptoms of COVID-19).
Seats would have markings to guide people where to sit and where not to, to ensure physical distancing.
The Iloilo Airport would be littered with reminders for people to constantly wear facemask.
At the entrance and exit of the airport, hand-washing stations would also be set up.
Hand sanitizers and alcohol would be made available, too.
When commercial flights finally resume, Parreño said, people should expect airlines to reduce their passenger flight capacity so as to ensure physical distancing in airplanes, and even the frequency of flights.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Iloilo Airport served around 25 arrival and departure flights daily, said Parreño.
The Iloilo Airport has a 13,700-square-meter main passenger terminal. It is divided into three levels: arrivals and baggage claim on the first floor, check-in on the second floor and departures on the third floor.
Designed to accommodate 1.2 million passengers a year over a decade ago, it is poised for expansion as it now serves 2.4 million passengers annually.
The current airport complex consists of a single runway, various administrative and maintenance buildings, waste-sorting and water-treatment facilities, a power-generating station, a cargo terminal, and a main passenger terminal.
Its location on the Tomas Confesor Highway, a major highway traversing Panay Island, makes the airport accessible from all parts of Iloilo and Panay by road, while its proximity to the currently defunct Panay Railways network could potentially link the airport to the rest of Panay by rail.
The Iloilo Airport has one primary 2,500-meter runway 45 meters wide. It can support wide-bodied aircraft such as the Airbus A330, Airbus A340, Airbus A350 XWB, Boeing 777(with reduced payload for the -300 series or -200 series), Boeing 767, Boeing 757, Antonov An-124 Ruslan, McDonnell Douglas MD-11and Boeing 787.
Runway lights and an Instrument Landing System were installed, making the airport capable of supporting low-visibility and night landings under any weather condition.
Three jet bridges protrude from the passenger terminal above a 48,000-square-meter apron, enabling the airport to handle up to six aircraft simultaneously./PN
