Acting Transportation Secretary Giovanni Lopez yesterday inspected the air traffic management center of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP to ensure its reliability and functionality to avoid a repeat of the 2023 New Year technical glitch that affected flights to and from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. directed the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and CAAP to make sure aviation operations will be efficient and travel of passengers will be hassle-free especially during All Saints’ Day and the Holiday season.
Acting Secretary Lopez instructed CAAP to perform all necessary measures for repairs and upgrades of the ATMC.
“I just want to emphasize that ayaw ko na mangyari what happened last January 1, 2023,” the acting transport chief said.
Lopez checked the CAAP facility, including the equipment and instruments being used in air traffic control.
During the inspection, Lopez learned that CAAP has already initiated measures to ensure systems redundancy and upgrade in the existing Communications, Navigation, Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM).
CAAP has also purchased new uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units for its CNS/ATM to prevent a similar incident from happening in the future.
“We checked the redundancy, among others. Let’s just make sure that what happened before won’t happen again so that no passengers will be inconvenienced, especially from Undas to Christmas and New Year,” Lopez said.
The acting transport chief asked CAAP Director General Raul del Rosario to relay to the CAAP board his earnest gratitude for supporting the agency’s efforts to prevent a repeat of the same incident in the aviation sector.
On January 1, 2023, the CAAP ATMC, which serves as the facility for controlling and overseeing all inbound and outbound flights and overflights within the Philippine airspace, went down due to power outage, resulting in loss of communication, radio, radar, and internet.
The system issue caused disruption of flights and affected thousands of passengers in NAIA as well as in other airports in the country.
