The Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Tuesday vowed to improve the facilities and equipment of Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) as well as passengers’ experience this year, but raised the issue of “brain drain” affecting the domestic aviation industry.
DOTr Secretary Jaime Bautista gave the assurance during a briefing with the House Committee on Transportation following the New Year’s Day technical glitch that resulted in many flight delays, diversions and cancelations.
The DOTr, he added, will solve recurring problems in the transportation sector, especially in the aviation sector.
Bautista said recommendations have already been submitted to President Ferdinand Marcos. Jr. to improve the country’s air traffic management system.
“We sincerely apologize to those who were affected by the technical glitch, which affected hundreds of flights and inconvenienced thousands of passengers,” he said.
“We hope to convey to our lawmakers and to the riding public that we are committed in coming up with a permanent solution affecting passengers and commuters,” Bautista told the members of the House Committee on Transportation chaired by Antipolo City Second District Rep. Romeo Acop.
Bautista said they are now studying proposals to install a backup system to ensure the incident will not happen again.
According to Bautista, immediate amendments to the procurement law are needed for the acquisition of technical equipment in the aviation industry.
Bautista has said DOTr may need over P13 billion to upgrade the system that caused the recent technical issues at Naia.
“We are thankful for the cooperation of other agencies that share similar sentiments about the need to amend existing procurement laws to expedite acquisition of vital technical equipment such as those of CAAP [Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines],” he added.
“We hope to highlight technical and financial support in upgrading the facilities in CAAP, Naia and other regional airports,” he added.
Bautista said they recovered more than 90 percent of operations at Naia within 24 hours after the incident.
“[But] at the same time the intra-agency investigation is being conducted on the source of the glitch, we are also addressing reports to set the record straight on what really happened,” he added.
Meanwhile, CAAP acting director general Manuel Antonio Tamayo said the CAAP has purchased two uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units to prevent another air traffic system glitch in the short term.
“We evaluated the condition of our two UPS, and one of the UPS had a problem on the blower but other than that, it is functioning as it should be. The other UPS had no defects at all. The problem is not the UPS. It was the circuit breaker,” Tamayo explained.
“But we did emergency procurement of two additional UPS because our current UPS is already mid-life. The UPS life is between five to 10 years. Our position is that, why wait seven to 10 years when this is vital equipment, so we procured two right away as a measure to prevent this from happening again,” he added.
But Tamayo said what caused the circuit breaker to fail is still under investigation. “We are not authorized to open the circuit breaker. If we find that it is not functioning, then we will replace it as we should,” he said.
In a news statement, the CAAP admitted that the country’s Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) System “is already behind when it was first used in 2019.”
It said the country’s air traffic management system is not obsolete, but upgrades should be implemented to prevent another technical glitch.
The P10.8-billion project financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) was completed in October 2017. It was only inaugurated on January 16, 2018 and commenced comprehensive operations on July 26, 2019.
Bautista also vowed to address “pain points” affecting airlines passengers, including inefficient ticket booking, airport congestions, long queues, immigration issues, baggage system, transportation around the airport.
Brain drain
Meanwhile, CAAP Director General Manuel Antonio Tamayo said the country is losing aviation experts due to low salary issues.
“As I mentioned, comparing the salary of our air traffic controller as against other air traffic controllers in our neighboring countries or around the world, their starting salary is P45,000 here in the country, whereas the starting salary of the same qualification of air traffic controllers in the Middle East is about equivalent to P300,000,” he said.
Tamayo has asked the government to facilitate the adjustment in the salary grades of air traffic personnel.
CAAP Assistant Director General Marlene Singson, air traffic control head, said air traffic controllers undergo at least one and a half years of training to complete their service course.
“So after we have trained them, they start and are deployed to air traffic service facilities nationwide, and some of them are not even given the plantilla position yet but we continue training them for rating in the facility that is a requirement for operations,” she said.
“As far as CAAP is concerned, one of our problems, our competent technicians, air traffic controllers have been pirated due to low salaries,” she revealed.
The Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG) has already vowed to look into the pay issue of air traffic officers working for CAAP facilities.
With Lenie Lectura