AIRPORT authorities on Sunday said that full power has been restored at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) terminal 3.
Officials of the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) said the power went out on Saturday evening “following a technical glitch with the airport’s electric source.”
The MIAA said blackout started at 8:45pm after a substation of Meralco at NAIA tripped causing terminal 3 to lose power which affected operations at the departure area.
But the substation, according to MIAA, was able to relay stable power to the terminal at 12:30am Sunday where terminal facilities were fully functional after an hour and a half.
Hundreds of outbound passengers were delayed as no flights were flying out of terminal 3 as of 1am Sunday, while arriving passengers who earlier were not allowed to deplane at terminal 3 gates started deplaning in other available terminals.
Because of the outage, international airlines Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, KLM, and Emirates were affected, while local airlines such as PAL Express and Cebu Pacific had to cancel their 24 domestic flights.
Arriving flights were manually towed to the aerobridges available while other aircraft were advised to offload their passengers at NAIA terminal 4.
NAIA terminal 3 manager Octavio Lina said they had placed all generators available on operations but only limited to airport lights and air-conditioning system.
He said that he was very thankful to all airline personnel at the check-in counters, immigration, customs and members of the Office of Transport Security who stood behind them despite the darkness.
The MIAA also apologized for the inconvenience and had earlier asked for patience from passengers who have been affected by the glitch.
Passengers with affected flights were advised to get in touch with their airlines. Airport authorities said measures are now being worked out to make sure that a power outage does not occur again in the future.
BENJIE L. VERGARA