‘No more equipment malfunction to disrupt flights’

MANILA, Philippines —  Following the corrective maintenance of equipment units used in Philippine airspace, the Air Traffic Service (ATS) yesterday said flight disruptions through malfunctions are a thing of the past.

In a statement, ATS chief Marlene Singson said that with the completion of the corrective maintenance, replacing the old uninterruptible power supply with two new UPS, the new automatic voltage regulator (AVR) and the upgraded power system, a “continuous safe air traffic management within the Philippine Flight Information Region” is guaranteed.

“Flight disruptions caused by equipment malfunction are now a thing of the past, and the Philippines now has a robust system to ensure safety and convenience of the flying public,” Singson, as quoted by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP,) said in a statement.

Two power upgrade and corrective maintenance activities were completed by the CAAP on May 3 and 17.

In the same statement, Air Navigation Service chief engineer Alex Balde said they aimed to have redundancy of power systems to ensure technical glitches would not happen again.

“With the goal to address the lack of power system redundancy and robustness that contributed to the technical glitch last 01 January 2023, the AVR was made operational again and 2 New UPS were installed,” Balde said.

He added that several modifications were also made in the electrical line system downstream configurations.

The CAAP on Wednesday said there was no shutdown that happened during the scheduled maintenance that day.

“There were no delays. We reported to the MIAA (Manila International Airport Authority) that everything was normal. There were no cancellations or delays,” CAAP Deputy Director General for Operations Edgardo Diaz said.

“The good thing is everything went well. There were no errors and there was no shutdown that happened. There were no flights affected, and the operation went normal,” he added.

In previous advisories, CAAP said it communicated its expectations of minimal flight disruptions during the maintenance activity. Early coordination with stakeholders that include air carriers and airport operators such as the MIAA, Luzon International Premier Airport Development (LIPAD), and GMR–Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC), ensured that relevant parties were well prepared.

The GMCAC reported that no flights were affected at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport while LIPAD, which operates Clark International Airport, said only four regional flights were affected.

Both Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific reported that all their scheduled flights were able to depart and arrive as planned during the maintenance period. While AirAsia Philippines had retimed six flights on May 16 and two on May 17. –  Rudy Santos