Flight delays continue at Manila airport after technical glitch

MANILA – Flights continued to be delayed at Philippines’ main airport on Tuesday as airlines reeled from a technical glitch on New Year’s Day that stranded thousands of passengers and caused a backlog at the flag carrier that could take weeks to clear.

Operations at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in the capital region are expected to be fully normalised on Wednesday or Thursday, said Mr Bryan Co, senior assistant general manager of the agency managing the gateway. There will be no more cancelled flights, but delays are expected, he told CNN Philippines on Tuesday.

A power supply problem caused the Manila airport’s traffic management system to go offline for several hours on Sunday, which Mr Co said disrupted holiday travel plans of over 65,000 passengers.

The Department of Transportation has launched a probe and senators are planning an investigation.

Philippine Airlines will likely clear the backlog caused by the glitch “in a few weeks”, spokesman Cielo Villaluna told CNN Philippines, adding that the national carrier is using bigger planes and adding flights to normalise operations.

Cebu Air is working on the recovery of its network, the airline said in a Facebook post on Monday.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, which runs and maintains air navigation facilities, is coordinating with airlines to ensure the safety of passengers.

“All procedures are in place, including for contingency, so we will be ready to respond just in case it happens again,” Mr Edgardo Diaz, deputy director-general at the aviation authority, said on state television.

The agency is prepared to answer questions from lawmakers when they conduct an inquiry into the incident, Mr Diaz said.

Mr Manuel Pangilinan, chairman of telecommunications company PLDT, was among those affected by the New Year’s Day delays. He posted on Twitter that he had to return to Haneda Airport in Japan from a Manila-bound flight, with radar and navigation facilities down in the Philippine airport.

“Six hours of useless flying but inconvenience to travellers and losses to tourism and business are horrendous,” he wrote on Twitter on Jan 1. The following day, Mr Pangilinan wrote that his companies are “happy to participate” in improving connectivity and power supply at the airport.

Transport Secretary Jaime Bautista on Dec 28 said the government planned to start accepting proposals in 2023 to develop the airport, which is more than 70 years old, with the terms for its privatisation likely ready in the first quarter. BLOOMBERG