Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 20) — The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) said its top priority is to enhance the travel experience at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and prevent a repeat of technical glitches that affected thousands of passengers earlier this year.
“Right now, there are efforts by the government to constantly improve the processes at NAIA you can note that there are several changes that have been implemented since last year,” MIAA Officer-in-Charge Bryan Co told CNN Philippines’ Traffic Center on Wednesday.
This year, the NAIA saw numerous technical glitches that resulted in hundreds of flights being canceled and thousands of passengers stranded, including during the crippling power outages on Labor Day and New Year’s Day.
Since then, the MIAA chief said they have carried out maintenance procedures to guarantee that the incidents will not happen again.
He also emphasized that ongoing enhancement of the airport is not aimed at privatizing NAIA, but primarily to address the looming problems with the airport systems.
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Among the programs implemented to resolve long passenger queues are the terminal reassignment of airlines and the removal of initial security screening points which allowed quicker access for passengers, Co said.
He added that ongoing multi-month electrical system upgrades in NAIA’s terminals have improved the airport’s traffic management center.
Co said they have temporarily halted these upgrades for the holiday season, and work will continue next year.
\”And of course, NAIA itself or MIAA has been investing a lot in terms of the infrastructure, electrical facilities have been upgraded; new transformers, new relays, new circuit breakers have been installed in the past weeks.\” he said. \”So that we can assure that we have the mitigating measures in place to avoid any possible power failure.\”
The MIAA chief added that the airport’s privatization under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) deal is pushing through.
He said the list of bidders will be finalized by the end of this year and the awarding will be by the first quarter of 2024. The turnover of operations for the privatization will possibly be by middle of next year, he added.
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\”They are projected to put in around ₱170 billion pesos in terms of the improvement of infrastructure, the runways, the terminals — all of these are very much needed since our airport right now is just at the 32 million per year capacity but as of this year, we will end at 45 million passengers,\” he said. \”So you can see that we really need these upgrades to be able to serve our customers.\”
When asked about MIAA’s biggest accomplishment this year, Co said that it is rationalizing operations.
\”We are now able to deploy our resources more properly and especially for Air Asia Philippines, now that they moved from the smaller terminal 4 to terminal 2,\” he pointed out.
Renaming NAIA
Meanwhile, the MIAA chief said that renaming the country’s main gateway is not part of their priorities.
NAIA bears the name of the late Senator Benigno \”Ninoy\” Aquino Jr., who was assassinated on the airport tarmac in 1983. Aquino led the opposition against the regime of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the father and namesake of the current president.
