Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 2) — The Department of Transportation (DOTr) said over ₱13 billion will be needed to upgrade the system that caused technical issues at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on New Year’s Day.
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“Kung (About the) budget, it should be more than ₱13 billion now considering we had this five years ago,” DOTr Sec. Jaime Bautista said in a briefing Sunday evening. “We will need a huge money for this. I was informed that the existing system will cost us around ₱13 billion in 2018.”
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Flights are still getting canceled and thousands of passengers remain stranded in the NAIA after technical issues with power supply affected communication, radio, radar, and internet in the airport on New Year’s Day.
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Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) Director General Manuel Tamayo said the glitch occurred after one of the uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) failed to operate, so troubleshooting had to be done.
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In a statement on Monday, the CAAP admitted that the country’s Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) System “is already behind when it was first used in 2019.”
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The ₱10.8-billion project financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) was completed in October 2017. It was only inaugurated Jan. 16, 2018 and commenced comprehensive operations July 26, 2019, the CAAP noted.
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It said recommendations were already made to President Ferdinand Marcos. Jr. to improve the country’s air traffic management system.
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Bautista said he already mentioned the matter to the chief executive.
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“Meron siyang (Marcos) instruction na pag-aralan mabuti, kaagad na gumawa ng proposal na magkaroon ng backup system,” the DOTr chief said. “Pag-aaralan natin ito, we will do a feasibility study and present this to NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority).”
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[Translation: He has an instruction to carefully study, immediately craft a proposal to have a backup system. We will look into this; we will do a feasibility study and present this to NEDA.]
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