Power Outage At Manila Airport Disrupts Travel For Thousands

Manila

Tens of thousands of travellers were stranded at the airport on New Year's Day in the Philippines after a power outage caused a malfunction of air traffic control at the country's busiest hub in Manila, reported to source.
The power outage temporarily impacted air traffic control, disrupting nearly 300 flights in the Southeast Asian hub.
The large-scale flight disruptions come amid a busy annual year-end travel period in the Philippines, which sees large numbers of foreign tourists as well as overseas citizens flying into the country from abroad to mark Christmas and New Year, some of the country's most important holiday celebrations, reported to source.
Notably, Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) is the main gateway for travellers to the Philippines, serving the capital Manila and the surrounding region.
Photos and videos shared online showed massive crowds at NAIA. Snaking queues were seen at several check-in counters. Many passengers lugging around their luggage were also spotted huddling around flight arrival screens waiting for updates.
Technical issues were first detected on Sunday morning, the airport operator, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), said in a statement.
A total of 282 flights were either delayed, cancelled, or diverted to other regional airports while around 56,000 passengers were affected as of 4 pm local time on New Year's Day, it added. In a press conference held on the evening of Sunday, Philippine Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista apologized for the inconvenience caused to passengers and said that the airport's central air traffic control system had suffered from a severe power outage, reported to source.