Regular power supply has been restored at the main Philippine airport’s Terminal 3, the airport authority said, after an almost nine-hour outage led to the cancellation of 48 Cebu Pacific (CEB.PS) domestic flights.
Cebu Pacific also confirmed that electricity had been restored at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3, in a notice on its Facebook page.
Only Cebu Pacific flights to and from the capital Manila were affected.
Emergency power backup enabled critical facilities at the terminal, such as airline and immigration computers to function partially during the outage, which came as many Filipinos were returning home from a three-day weekend.
Cebu Pacific offered its passengers departing to and from Terminal 3 an option to rebook or to request refunds to be put in a travel fund for future use.
The outage, initially blamed by some airport engineers on a “fault current” affecting the electrical system, caused congestion at check-in counters and stranded passengers, some of them expressing dismay and frustration on social media.
Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said authorities will look into the cause of the outage. In a media briefing, he said he was not discounting the possibility of sabotage.
The outage came four months after a power failure forced authorities to close the South-East Asian country’s airspace on New Year’s Day, affecting about 600 flights and stranding around 65,000 passengers.
Yesterday was a public holiday in the Philippines and many were expected to fly back to Manila from a long holiday weekend. —Reuters/Bloomberg
