DOT chief hopes NAIA chaos won’t affect tourist arrivals

MANILA, Philippines — Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said she hopes the incident that paralyzed the operations of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) will not affect tourist arrivals in the country.

“I hope (it won’t affect arrivals) because this only happened once and I believe that we will not allow this to happen again,” Puyat said in a television interview Monday.

Foreign arrivals in the first half of this year hit a record high of 3.7 million, a 10.4 percent rise from the 3.35 million in the same period last year.

Last Thursday, Xiamen Air Boeing 737-800 skidded off the runway of the NAIA. It took authorities 36 hours to remove the aircraft off the strip.

This paralyzed airport operations, affecting tens of thousands of passengers of delayed and canceled flights.

Puyat said the NAIA incident still remains as an issue of the Department of Transportation. 

“As (Secretary Arthur Tugade) said they will be looking, improving all the protocols involved and I think what’s more important is that this doesn’t happen again. I believe that this, as he said, is an eye opener,” Puyat said.

In the same interview, Puyat said the rehabilitation of Boracay island is on track.

The Department of Tourism secretary, however, said she feels that it should be Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu who must formally announce the reopening of the island.

“I think he would be announcing it. I feel that he should be the one to formally announce it that it will be opened Oct. 26. But I think it should be a soft opening because you cannot really rehabilitate an island in six months,” Puyat said.