Pasay City
January 6, 2023
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. inspected the present situation at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 for domestic and international flights following the unexpected technical glitch at the Air Traffic Management Center (ATMC) of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) that affected both international and domestic flights on New Year’s day.
The President discussed crisis management measures and ways forward for the aviation sector with Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Jaime Bautista, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan John Uy, Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) General Manager Cesar Chiong, CAAP Director General Captain Manuel Antonio Tamayo, DOTr Undersecretary for Aviation Atty. Roberto Lim, Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) Director Atty. Carmelo Arcilla, Office for Transportation Security (OTS) Administrator Ma. O Ranada Aplasca and airport stakeholders from the Airline Operators Council, Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific Air and Air Asia Philippines in a briefing at the NAIA Terminal 3.
In a press conference afterwards, the Chief Executive announced that the airport is now back to normal operations following the incident. He apologized to the public for the inconvenience that it caused them and vowed to undertake further measures to prevent this from happening again.
President Marcos Jr. also clarified that based on further investigation conducted by authorities, it was found that the problem was not the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) but the circuit breaker which has already been replaced. He mentioned the emergency procurement of two (2) UPS units to replace the existing one.
According to CAAP, the ATMC systems encountered power outage at 09:49 AM on January 1, 2023 that was restored at around 04:00 PM on the same day. CAAP also reported that 17 arriving and 21 departing international flights were operated upon the resumption of Philippine air traffic activities, and normal operations resumed within 72 hours.
DOTr Secretary Bautista announced in a recent interview that DICT Secretary Uy offered to assist in upgrading their existing facilities and expediting the acquisition of new equipment to provide better service for passengers. He also mentioned that installing a new ATMC is among the priorities of DOTr in 2023.
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