Local airlines Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and AirAsia Philippines, as well as other international airlines operating at the terminals of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, will modify their international and domestic flight schedules beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, to accommodate the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines’ scheduled maintenance work on its radar system that will last for approximately two weeks.
PAL spokesperson Cielo Villaluna, CEB Corporate Communication head Carmina Romero, and Steve Dailisan, head of Corporate Communication at AirAsia Philippines, said they will provide updates, as necessary, through their websites and Facebook pages.
There will be some adjustments to their flight schedules — some will be earlier, and some will be delayed for about 30 minutes to 2 hours to make way for the government’s scheduled work on radar systems.
CAAP spokesman Eric Apolonio said the CAAP issued a Notice to Airmen and will inform the public that a corrective maintenance activity will be conducted at the Philippine Air Traffic Management Center on 3 and 17 May 2023 to repair the Automatic Voltage Regulator, replace the Uninterruptible Power Supply and upgrade the Air Traffic Management System A/B power supply.
Apolonio added that the facility houses the Communications, Navigation, Surveillance, and Air Traffic Management system, which manages and supervises the air traffic activities within the Philippine Flight Information Region.
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 serving as each other’s backup in case the other power supply encounters a problem, according to Apolonio.
The corrective maintenance activity will include the operations at the ATMC and will be suspended from 2 a.m. until 4 a.m. on 3 May 2023, and from 12 midnight until 6 a.m. on 17 May 2023. If the activity is finished earlier, the issued Notice to Airmen will be lifted, and operations at the ATMC will resume as normal.
Apolonio also said that the corrective maintenance activity will mainly affect the flights at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Clark International Airport and Mactan-Cebu International Airport, as well as several flights at the other 42 CAAP commercially operated airports.
The CAAP said it has already coordinated with and informed concerned parties such as air carriers and airport operators, among them the Manila International Airport Authority, Luzon International Premiere Airport Development Corp. and GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corporation.