ILOILO – The country’s airspace shutdown this Wednesday will not affect flights at the Iloilo Airport in Cabatuan town.
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) will implement an airspace shutdown on May 17 from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. for a radar systems maintenance at the Philippine Air Traffic Management Center (ATMC). The uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and air traffic management system (ATMS) will be upgraded.
“The ATMS power supply upgrade will involve the installation of a bypass panel to provide seamless ATMS operation and the reconfiguration of the existing distribution panel to segregate ATM system A (voice) and ATM system B (data), resulting in the UPS and AVR (automatic voltage regulator) serving as each other’s backup in case the other power supply encounters a problem,” CAAP’s earlier advisory read.
CAAP-Iloilo terminal supervisor Arthur Parreño said the airspace shutdown’s original schedule of 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. was shortened to 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. to avoid causing significant inconvenience to airline passengers.
Parreño said flights at the Iloilo Airport will not be disturbed by the airspace shutdown since the facility has no flights from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.
The earliest flight is that of the Philippine Airlines (PAL) at 5 a.m., Parreño told Panay News in an interview yesterday afternoon.
If an airline decides to depart ahead of schedule, they have to request CAAP-Iloilo, said Parreño, but as of this moment they have not received any request from PAL, Cebu Pacific Air or AirAsia — the three airline companies currently operating domestic flights at the Iloilo Airport.
Airlines, added Parreño, have the obligation to inform their passengers or clients regarding any movement of the flight schedules since they have the contact information of the passengers.
The CAAP-Iloilo officer also said it would be better if the airlines inform their passengers ahead of time about the airspace shutdown or any changes to scheduled flights so they could prepare.
On a regular basis, the Iloilo Airport caters to 39 commercial flights daily (19 arrivals and 19 departures) from Iloilo to Metro Manila and vice versa.
The airport also caters to commercial flights with routes Iloilo-General Santos and vice versa, Iloilo-Davao and vice versa, and Iloilo-Cebu and vice versa, but intermittently, or every Tuesday and Thursday, or Monday-Wednesday and Friday only.
On Jan. 1 this year, the country’s air traffic took a sudden halt. The ATMC at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), which serves as the facility for controlling and overseeing all inbound and outbound flights and overflights within the Philippine airspace, went down due to a technical glitch, resulting in the loss of communication, radio, radar, and internet.
A total of 2,703 passengers were affected at the Iloilo Airport alone, mostly on routes from Iloilo to Manila and Iloilo to Cebu./PN
