A clueless bureaucrat?

For a taxpayer who must work over four months of a year to pay a bureaucrat’s salary, it is frustrating to hear them publicly exposing their lack of knowledge.

We all know that the problem of congestion at NAIA is on account of its single working runway. (They have stopped using the other cross runway for safety reasons.) Even if we build 10 terminals there but if there is only one runway, planes will still have to fall in line to take off and circle around to land. That is simple and logical even laymen should be able to understand.

Here is how someone with technical knowledge explained the situation for me: “At present the separation between aircraft movements is 1.5 mins. or 40 per hour. On landing that means the aircraft behind you is only six km away and as you slow down for final landing that aircraft is only four km away.  To try to compress the separation is too risky.

“On departures, the push back time from the terminal is critical to meet your take off slots. A delay in terminal departures destroys the entire slot program for that hour and creates a domino effect on the other hours.

“Yes you will hear guys talking about NAIA doing 60/hr on one runway. They are talking through their ears. That is only possible with a multi-runway airport with the correct ICAO design standards. Yes you can bring aircraft movements close to even 20 to 30 secs separation but those separations are done in different runways.”

So why is a deputy administrator of CAAP publicly saying we should build a new airport terminal instead of a new runway to decongest NAIA?

According to a story on InterAksyon, CAAP deputy director general for Operations Rodante Joya told lawmakers who inspected the NAIA facilities last Thursday that building another terminal is faster and less expensive compared to building another runway to accommodate more flights. It shows Joya doesn’t understand his job. A runway and a terminal are two different things designed to serve two different functions… it isn’t one or the other.

Joya said building a new runway entails spending so much to expropriate many residential properties near the end of the runway like Merville Subdivision in Paranaque, which is too close to the international runway 06-24. The new terminal he proposes in lieu of a new runway will be called “Terminal 5”.

Good Grief, Mr. Joya… cost is not the issue here. You simply need another runway because even with 10 new terminals, those planes will be waiting and circling NAIA.

I am sure CAAP chief William Hotchkiss can straighten out Mr. Joya on this. I respect Hotchkiss and his other deputy, John Andrews because they know their stuff which unfortunately, they haven’t shared with Joya. Maybe they should instruct Joya to just shut up because he is embarrassing them too.

Joya is however correct in saying that we need an immediate solution to the congestion problem because local carriers are expanding their fleet rapidly. He cited flag carrier Philippine Airlines, which is planning to add 38 aircraft by 2024; and leading low-cost carrier Cebu Pacific which will add another 50 in 2021. That’s exactly what I have been saying all these years but DOTC isn’t reacting.

Of course the third runway will displace a lot of people living in subdivisions and squatter areas around the airport. But building it with the proper specifications that follow international standards is a necessary medium term solution.

It is even cheaper and more quickly implemented than a fast train from Clark that costs around $9 billion and over a decade to build. But I admit it would not be easy. It would require political will to undertake the expropriation of needed land.

They will need to do a proper third runway. Experts say the current proposal is not compliant to ICAO standards and may cause even more congestion problems.

Third runway or not, there is also no getting away from building another airport near Metro Manila. If it is going to be Sangley, let us get going right away because we have no time to lose. There is not enough land in Sangley for a good sized international airport and reclamation has to be done.

If it is going to be in Sangley, JICA also recommends building a new roadway and bridge to connect the airport to the reclamation area near MOA. Cavitex will not be sufficient to carry the expected airport traffic.

The other thing that could help relieve congestion at NAIA is to fix all those provincial airports. If more provincial airports had night landing facilities, PAL and Cebu Pacific can schedule their flights to include hours after sundown. Right now, they have to crowd the flights around a sundown curfew.

Then DOTC Sec. Mar Roxas promised those night landing facilities way back in May 2012. Mar specifically promised to make 14 more provincial airports to be night-rated. These airports are Tagbilaran, Legazpi, Dumaguete, Butuan, Ozamis, Cotabato, Naga, Dipolog, Roxas, Pagadian, Tuguegarao, Busuanga, Surigao, and San Jose, Mindoro. Mar also said general aviation will be moved to Sangley.  Here is the link to that story from Official Gazette: http://www.gov.ph/2012/05/08/dotc-to-implement-measures-to-ease-naia-runway-congestion/

The thing is, did anything happen? How many of those airports now have night landing facilities?

DOTC knew way back then that congestion is a serious problem at NAIA. But unfortunately, knowing a problem exists and doing something to solve or even alleviate it are different things.

Here is how then DOTC Sec. Mar Roxas described the problem: “We have a runway congestion problem today; we all got here collectively,” Roxas said. “Hindi natin namalayan na may runway traffic na umusbong sa pagdami ng mga aircraft population at flight schedules sa loob ng nakaraang mga taon.”

“Statistics gathered by the DOTC shows that air fleet population of commercial airlines today has doubled to 119 compared with only 62 in 2008. As of 2006, these aircraft also serviced a total of 18 million passengers that went up to 30 million last year. Aircraft movements, or takeoffs and landings at NAIA also went up to 255,000 in 2011 compared with 171,000 in 2006.

“NAIA’s runways can only accommodate an average of 36 events (takeoffs and landings) per hour, but actual scheduled commercial and general aviation flights, including fish runs, went to as high as 50 events per hour during the daytime this summer season, resulting to a congested runway that caused flight delays and cancellations.”

Yun naman pala. Maybe Mar didn’t do a proper turnover to Jun Abaya when he left DOTC. But Jun will have to be blind not to notice the problem. He is remiss in his duties as DOTC Sec for this failure to do anything about it.

A new airport in Sangley will take 10 years to build. What do we do in the meantime?

San Miguel has offered to build a new airport in the reclamation area at no cost to the government. If government acted early enough, San Miguel said it could be inaugurated in phases with the first one before P-Noy bows out of office. It was presented to P-Noy who seems to have been impressed. But it was turned down by Sec. Abaya and the DOTC mafia who insist on building the airport themselves as if they are capable of doing it or any infrastructure for that matter.

Accepting the San Miguel airport offer is a no-brainer because it is private sector funded and managed and we can be sure its construction will be faster. On the other hand, we have a DOTC who has failed to get a maintenance provider for MRT 3 in several failed biddings. DOTC has also failed to get that centralized information systems going even if Mar said it was a priority. At NAIA, it took them over nine months to get new central aircon units.

What to do seems obvious but not to the folks at DOTC. So we all have to suffer in the meantime. But while we are waiting for something to happen, bureaucrats who do not understand their work should just shut up and stop confusing things.

It is difficult for a taxpayer to realize that his hard earned tax money is being made to pay the upkeep of a bureaucrat who doesn’t know what he is doing or talking about. 

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.