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Business, tourism groups wary over impact of New Year's Day flight cancellations

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Warren de Guzman, ABS-CBN News

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Hundreds of stranded passengers crowd the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 in Pasay City after hundreds of flights were canceled, delayed or diverted on New Year" s="" Day.="" at="" the="" air="" navigation="" facilities="" of="" Civil="" Aviation="" Authority="" Philippines="" prompted="" cancellation="" local="" and="" international="" according="" to="" Department="" Transportation.="" ABS-CBN="" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2023/life/01/02/20230101-naia-new-year-crisis-jvc12.jpg"/><figcaption>Hundreds of stranded passengers crowd the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 in Pasay City after hundreds of flights were canceled, delayed or diverted on New Year&#x27;s Day. “Technical issues” at the air navigation facilities of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) prompted the cancellation of local and international flights, according to the Department of Transportation. ABS-CBN News</figcaption></figure></div> MANILA - Business and tourism groups on Monday said they are disappointed over the New Year’s Day cancellation of hundreds of flights which has affected thousands of passengers. Some said they fear the flight mess has damaged the image of the Philippines as a tourism destination, while others said they hope that any negativity will be short-lived. The Tourism Congress of the Philippines said the closure of the Philippines’ airspace and cancelation of nearly 300 flights on New Year’s day has raised a lot of questions for travelers. “What happened yesterday has raised some questions for travelers and the tourism industry. Is it going to happen again? How often will it happen if it continues to be a problem? What we also saw is that the airport, the airlines, and even us in tourism were not ready,” said group president Jojo Clemente. He said the group received many calls and emails from affected passengers. “Nobody knew what to do, or how to get a flight in or out of the Philippines.”Clemente was also disappointed with the reason behind the fiasco. The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said there was a loss of power in the system was due to a problem in the system’s electrical network. CAAP said the uninterruptible power supply (UPS), which is to be used as backup power supply, also failed. “Sabi power outage daw. Siyempre ang unang pumasok sa isip namin, wala bang backup yan? Yung mga ganong bagay ba, dapat hindi mangyayari yan for something na ganito ka importante, ganito kalaki na industriya,” Clemente said. (They said there was a power outage. Our first thought was: isn’t there a backup? Issues like these should never happen to something very important and large such as this industry.)Tycoon Manuel Pangilinan of Metro Pacific Investments Corp, said his flight from Japan was also affected. &quot;We’re told radar and navigation facilities at NAIA down. I was on my way home from Tokyo - 3 hours into the flight, but had to return to Haneda,&quot; Pangilinan posted on Twitter. He said they had to endure &quot;6 hours of useless flying&quot; and that &quot;losses to tourism and business are horrendous” For the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the damage has already been done to the Philippines’ image. &quot;It&#x27;s a wake up call to improve our nation&#x27;s airport because a recent survey ranked us quite low. I hope backup and disaster recovery systems can be installed,“ said PCCI president George Barcelon. <ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/01/02/23/new-year-fiasco-highlights-need-for-airport-improvements-pcci">New Year fiasco underscores need for airport upgrades: business group</a></li></ul>Businessman Joey Concepcion said the government needs to look at privatizing NAIA again. Concepcion, who worked together with a “super consortium” of some of the country’s largest conglomerates years ago to privatize NAIA, said the proposal should be revisited in light of the New Year’s Day flight fiasco. “NAIA is strategically located and any improvements made here will redound to so many benefits to the country. I believed then, as I do now, that the private sector can contribute so much if allowed to participate,” Concepcion said. The Marcos Administration recently said it will revive plans to privatize NAIA. <div>COMPLICATED REBOOKING</div>In an interview with ANC, Philippine Airlines Spokesperson Cielo Villaluna said it will take some time to get all the affected passengers to their destinations due to the high level of traffic they are experiencing. &quot;After the 72-hour period from January 2 to within the next 72 hours, we hope to restore the normal frequency of flights,” Villaluna said. <ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/01/02/23/expect-delays-as-operations-normalize-pal">PAL tells passengers: Expect delays as operations normalize</a></li></ul>Villaluna meanwhile said she does not see the events of New Year’s Day as having any long term impact on air travel appetite, which has rebounded since the height of the pandemic. &quot;We look at this as a temporary setback and we are slowly recalibrating and we hope to return to normalcy within 72 hours,” Villaluna said. Clemente however said rebooking the flights of affected passengers will be complicated as many existing flights may already be fully booked. &quot;Hindi ganun kadali masolusyonan yan so magcacascade pa ang problema na yan. Hindi lang sa PAL pero sa ibang airlines pa. Masalimuot yan.&quot; (There is no easy fix and the problem could cascade. This isn’t just about PAL. All airlines will have to do the same. It is complicated.)<div>UPGRADING AVIATION INFRA</div>Concepcion said the private sector needs to be tapped to upgrade the country’s aviation infrastructure. “Having seen how badly key systems in our air transportation system need to be modernized, and how severely any glitch can affect the whole country, I hope that this time, we can revive this proposal and see it through.”Improved connectivity is included in the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028, which was published on New Year’s Day by the National Economic and Development Authority. The plan includes efforts to improve travel infrastructure as a means to bolster tourism and trade. In the 12th chapter on expanding and upgrading infrastructure PDP 2023-2028 noted that plans to improve airport infrastructure had stalled over the last few years.&quot;Little progress has been made to improve airport infrastructures. The country has a total of 90 airports in operation—comprising 11 international, 41 domestic, 38 community— and 3 airports not in operation in 2022. The PDP noted that not all the country’s international airports and principal Class 1 and principal Class 2 airports comply with modern safety design thresholds. The plan also noted that airport capacities will not likely be able to keep up with demand. <ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/01/02/23/naia-expecting-700-flights-after-power-outage-crisis">&#x27;72 hours to normalize&#x27;: NAIA expecting 700 flights after power outage crisis</a></li></ul><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=2400448" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>

Business and tourism groups on Monday said they are disappointed over the New Year’s Day cancellation of hundreds of flights which has affected thousands of passengers. 

Business, tourism groups wary over impact of New Year's Day flight cancellations

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Business, tourism groups wary over impact of New Year's Day flight cancellations

Warren de Guzman,

ABS-CBN News

Published Jan 02, 2023 03:08 PM PHT

Read More:

tourism

fight cancellations

NAIA

CAAP

flight delays

rebooking

Jojo Clemente

PCCI

George Barcelon

Joey Concepcion

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