Flights suspended in Philippines on New Year’s Day after energy outage, airspace shut

Flights out and in of Manila have been placed on a halt on New Year’s Day within the Philippines resulting from a malfunction of the air site visitors management system which officers mentioned was attributable to an influence outage.

Manila,UPDATED: Jan 2, 2023 07:19 IST

A passenger on the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines (Reuters picture)

By Reuters: Philippine authorities halted flights out and in of Manila on New Year’s Day resulting from a malfunction of air site visitors management, which additionally prevented airways certain to different locations from utilizing the nation’s airspace.

A complete of 282 flights have been both delayed, cancelled or diverted to different regional airports, affecting round 56,000 passengers at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), the airport operator mentioned on Sunday.

It was unclear what number of overflights have been affected.

ALSO READ | Brazil’s Lula da Silva sworn in as president for third time period

Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista apologized for the inconvenience to passengers as he blamed an influence outage for the breakdown of the central air site visitors management system that additionally affected operations at different airports within the nation.

He mentioned the outdated current facility needs to be upgraded instantly and {that a} back-up system was additionally wanted.

“This is air traffic management system issue,” he mentioned in a media briefing. “If you will compare us with Singapore, for one, there is a big difference, they are at least 10 years ahead of us.”

As of 0800 GMT, “the system has been partially restored thereby allowing limited flight operations”, the Manila International Airport Authority mentioned in a press release. By late night, eight flight arrivals and eight departures had been allowed, in line with the airport operator.

ALSO READ | 3 cops injured in machete assault close to Times Square on New Year’s Eve

Video clips and pictures posted on social media confirmed lengthy queues on the airport and airline personnel distributing meals packs and drinks to stranded passengers.

“We’re told radar and navigation facilities at NAIA down. I was on my way home fm Tokyo – 3 hours into the flight, but had to return to Haneda,” tweeted one passenger – Manuel Pangilinan, chairman of Philippine telecommunications conglomerate PLDT Inc.

“6 hours of useless flying but inconvenience to travellers and losses to tourism and business are horrendous. Only in the PH. Sigh.”

Budget carriers Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines mentioned they have been providing passengers resulting from fly on Sunday free rebooking or the choice to transform tickets to vouchers.

ALSO READ | Over 30,000 in Pakistan seem for police constable examination, sit on stadium floor to write down paper

Posted By:

chingkheinganbi mayengbam

Published On:

Jan 2, 2023