You are waiting to board the aircraft back to Manila from one of the
Philippine islands. Then you hear an announcement: your flight is delayed.
Would you blame the airline?
Most often than not, we do. After experiencing domestic flight delays
several times, some of us even associate certain airlines with delays. But do
you know that it is not always the airline’s fault? Sometimes, there are just
too many flights scheduled to arrive at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport
(NAIA) all at the same time. It does not matter whether your flight goes to
NAIA Terminal 1, 2 or 3, because NAIA has only one runway—technically there are
two but because of the design, only one aircraft can land or take off at any
given time.
And when we say ‘arriving at the same time’, it is indeed possible for
several flights to indicate the same expected time of arrival (ETA). Hence, if
there are ten airlines with ETA at 12:02, then our air traffic
controllers have this challenging task of scheduling which airline
lands at exactly 12:02, and who gets to land a few minutes before or a few
minutes after. Thus, even if the turnaround plane arrives on schedule, the cargo
is loaded and all other preparations done on time, it is possible that the
pilot could not get the permit to depart because of the traffic in Manila.
Hence, there are cases when passengers are kept from boarding and asked to wait
at the terminal instead.
Note that holding airlines at the departure airport is only possible
for domestic flights, since international flights get to confirm ETA earlier
because of the flying time. So according to the Civil Aviation Authority of the
Philippines (CAAP), only domestic flights ‘share’ this ‘delay’, by dividing the
number of minutes by the number of domestic airlines with the same schedule.
Some airlines try to get ahead of the others, especially when some of
its passengers have connecting flights; but because of this, this airline’s
share of delay is passed on to the
others. Thus, it would help if airlines cooperate.
NAIA is congested, 40+ flights a day at peak. The number of flights
increases, but NAIA cannot expand. The adjacent lands have all been developed,
and there is no more space to for a new runway. While the government of the
Philippines is looking for a long term solution to this problem, it also tries
to provide an immediate solution.
This is the job of the Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) Center. The
ATFM assigns and divides the time of delay among domestic airlines. With proper
management and cooperation from all concerned, it is possible to lower the
length of delay to as low as the internationally accepted time of less than 10
minutes. It is not wishful thinking. According to CAAP, the total number of
airborne holding from June to August this year averages at 1,905 minutes in
total for these three months, compared to 2,891 minutes for the same period last
year. We are also able to achieve the average delay per flight that is lower
than 10 minutes--6.13 minutes to be exact.
This improvement is partly attributed to the ongoing technical
cooperation project entitled “Capacity Enhancement for Safety and Efficiency of
Air Navigation System”, which is supported by JICA. Through this project, Japanese
air traffic experts help CAAP improve air traffic management. Experts from
Japan train air traffic flow managers on the collaborative decision making
(CDM) approach, a technique that recognizes sharing of updated operational data
to reduce delay as a result of ground delay programming. Aside from congestion,
the CDM approach also helps during adverse weather conditions. On September 14,
domestic airline operators and other stakeholders met at the CAAP to discuss
the CDM. JICA also conducted the Greater Manila Airport Study, to assess how
the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clark, Pampanga can complement
the operation at NAIA. The Philippine government continues to find ways to
address the need for improving our country’s gateways. For the passengers,
faster boarding and kind understanding would help ease the situation. #
