P13B needed to upgrade NAIA traffic management system

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) said over P13 billion will be needed to upgrade the system that caused technical issues at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on New Year’s Day.

“Kung budget, it should be more than P13 billion now considering we had this five years ago,” Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said in a press briefing on Sunday night.

“We will need a huge money for this. I was informed that the existing system will cost us around ₱13 billion in 2018,” he added.

With the current systems, Bautista estimated that the Philippines was 10 years behind its peers.

“This is not really an airport issue. This is an air traffic management system issue. If you will compare us with Singapore, for one, malaking difference. They are at least 10 years ahead of us,” he said.

“Although it’s a system that was introduced in 2010, na-implement natin ito in 2018, so parang midlife na itong system na ito na kailangan na talaga natin sigurong iimprove or i-modernize. Siguro we can still use it, but we need to upgrade this to a better system.”

Bautista explained that power outages downed air navigation facilities of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) at around 9:50 a.m., Sunday.

This resulted in the loss of communication, radio, radar and internet at NAIA, Bautista added.

He also said the equipment providing uninterrupted power supply in two NAIA terminals suddenly went offline and failed to connect to the backup commercial power supply of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

“We have uninterrupted power supply. The problem was not the electricity coming from Meralco, but with the CAAP equipment,” he said.

A total of 282 flights were either delayed, cancelled or diverted to other regional airports, affecting around 56,000 passengers at NAIA, the airport operator said on Sunday.

Video clips and photos posted on social media showed long queues at the airport as they wait for announcements from their respective airline companies.

As of 7 p.m. Sunday, a total of 345 flights were cancelled, 10 were diverted, and six were delayed.

The DOTr said authorities continue to coordinate with the airlines, other airports, and operators to address the situation.