NAIA privatization mulled; Philippine airspace to shut for hours on May 17

Here are the developments on the ongoing troubles at NAIA and the Air Traffic Management Center.

Temporary air space shutdown on May 3 and 17, 2023

On May 3, 2023, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines temporarily shut down the Philippine air space for a few hours to conduct a corrective maintenance at the Air Traffic Management Center or ATMC.

The maintenance will cover the replacement of the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR), and upgrade the power supply.

CAAP says the Philippine Air Space will be closed anew on May 17, from 12:00 mn to 6:00 am, for the same purpose. [UPDATE: The May 17 shut down has been shortened to two hours between 2:00 and 4:00 am.]

The maintenance comes after the January 1 fiasco, where the country’s air space was shut down for a few hours due to the electrical problem at the ATMC, which hampered the Air Traffic Management System that covers the entire archipelago.

NAIA privatization mulled by Senate President

Meanwhile, over at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) itself, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri shared his personal sentiment, whereby he is in favor of privatizing the airport operations. SP Zubiri even went as far as naming the Changi Airport Group, operator of Singapore Changi Airport — SkyTrax’s Best Airport — as a potential partner for the plan.

Zubiri’s statement comes after the Labor Day power outage that affected passengers, as well as the operations in the Terminal 3 of NAIA.

MIAA seeks Php 1bn funding to add generator sets in NAIA

Speaking of which, the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) has requested for a Php 1 billion funding from the government. The money will be spent to add generator sets in the terminal and meet the needs of the entire NAIA complex — which also includes Terminals 1, 2, and 4, and other facilities — should a power outage occur again in the future.

Meanwhile, the cause of the Labor Day power failure has also been linked to either faulty wiring or short circuit, as per Meralco.