ILOILO City – The Iloilo Airport in Cabatuan, Iloilo will remain closed to commercial flights until June 10 unless the suspension of its operation is lifted earlier by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP).
“We are waiting for pronouncements from our higher office,” said CAAP-Iloilo terminal supervisor Art Parreño.
Today, Iloilo province starts being under a general community quarantine, a downgrade from over a month of being under an enhanced community quarantine to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This is raising questions on Iloilo Airport’s possible reopening.
According to Parreño, unless the suspension order is revoked, no commercial planes would be allowed to land or takeoff.
Only “sweeper flights” would be accommodated – airplanes transporting stranded overseas Filipino workers or Ilonggos wanting to go home – and airplanes used by the military to transport healthcare personnel and equipment.
Parreño, however, confirmed that CAAP-Iloilo is preparing the airport for its eventual reopening.
Under the new normal, he said, social distancing would be enforced at the airport, and so is the wearing of facemasks.
Arrival and departure areas wound be decontaminated, said Parreño.
The checking of people’s temperature using thermal scanners would resume, he added.
As to the volume of airplane passengers, Parreño said, CAAP was still discussing this with various airlines. But he did not discount the possibility of a reduction in passenger volume.
Before the quarantine, the Iloilo Airport was seeing a frequency of 25 planes arriving and the same number of planes departing.
The airport temporarily suspended its operation beginning March 18 due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. It was requested by Gov. Arthur Defensor Jr.
These were the only exceptions:
* flights with healthcare workers responding to emergency
* flights with members of the Philippine National Police and all branches of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
* flights with persons travelling for urgent medical reasons
* flights with persons traveling into the province on common carriers and/or transport for the conduct of trade, delivery of social/humanitarian services, fishing/marine activities, scientific/academic pursuit, and such other essential purposes, other than carriage of passengers
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, and it is also considered to be the primary gateway into the region. It opened to commercial traffic on June 14, 2007 with then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo inaugurating it.
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
