An investment in aircraft safety

Escaping urban blight this summer has become a source of deep anxiety. Should you travel by land, risking collision with a bus driven by some drug-addled speed maniac? Should you take a ferry, which could put you in a watery grave? Or should you take a plane? It's the fastest means of transportation, but also the most expensive, and it can't even guarantee your safety.

Fatalistic Filipinos normally shrug off plane crashes. In the Philippine aviation industry, one plane crash does not render an entire fleet unsafe and doom an airline company. The riding public's key considerations are fares, services and amenities. But after the crash of Air Philippines Flight 541 in Davao, even the most fatalistic Filipino may think twice about taking a plane. It's not reassuring to learn that the government has no money to modernize the air navigation equipment in the country's four international airports. This revelation came from the chief of the Air Transportation Office himself.

ATO chief Jake Ortega said of the four international airports, only the Ninoy Aquino International Airport has an approach terminal radar, which guides aircraft as they come in for landing. The Davao airport, where Flight 541 was supposed to land, has only a high-frequency omni range facility that provides incoming planes with a reading of their altitude. The NAIA's radar is 17 years old and needs to be replaced. But the radar can cost billions of pesos to acquire and install, so the country may have to rely on a foreign grant for the radar's acquisition, Ortega said. As for the other international airports in Davao, Laoag and Mactan, there's simply no budget for modern navigation equipment.

The government has been scrounging for funds to modernize its airport facilities. It took years before a new terminal was built at the NAIA, which still pales beside other international airports in the region. The government, however, can give priority to modernizing airport facilities that will ensure the safety of all aircraft. Never mind the inadequate baggage carousels and the dingy toilets. The first investment should be in aircraft safety.