Senator Nancy Binay has expressed dismay at the management of the Department of Transportation (DOTr) led by Secretary Jaime Bautista following the power outages that hit the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 on Labor Day.
In a statement Monday (May 1), Binay said the incident couldn’t have come at a worse time as it affected thousands of travelers flying during the long weekend.
“Again, today’s incident pointed to a string of inadequacies that showed how weak, bad and vulnerable our airports are. Sadly, the message that we are actually sending the world: Travelling in the Philippines has become an unpleasant and frustrating experience,” she said.
Over 9,000 passengers were affected by the power outage at NAIA Terminal 3, which started past 1 a.m. Operations went back to normal by 8:46 a.m.
Power went out at the terminal again twice on Monday afternoon. The first outage happened 1 p.m. and lasted for 10 minutes, while the second happened at around 3:45 p.m. and lasted for about 25 to 30 minutes.
The DOTr and Manila International Airport Authority are still determining the cause of the power outage, which occurred four months after the January 1 air traffic fiasco at NAIA which affected over 56,000 passengers.
The New Year shutdown of Philippine airspace was blamed on an outdated air traffic control system.
Binay said DOTr and MIAA have apparently failed to learn lessons from the January 1 air traffic fiasco.
“Yes, we expect a certain amount of chaos during holidays and peak seasons. But now, outages and technical glitches seem to have become a common occurrence at our airports–‘di na tayo natuto,” she said.
