Airlines update flights after Taal eruption

By Arjay L. Balinbin, Reporter

PHILIPPINE AIRLINES, Inc. (PAL) has cancelled 15 flights to and from Manila on Tuesday to accommodate flights to certain routes that were cancelled recently due to the Taal Volcano eruption.

For its part, Cebu Pacific (Cebu Air, Inc.) said that its operations in and out of Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) went back to “normal” on Tuesday.

AirAsia Philippines (Philippines AirAsia, Inc.) said “further cancellation” of flights were to be expected on Tuesday “to ensure the safety of passengers and aircraft.”

In an advisory, PAL said: “We are in the process of operating replacement flights on certain routes to assist passengers affected by recent cancellations, and in a few cases we are upgrading certain flights to larger-capacity widebody aircraft to deal with the overflow of affected passengers.”

PAL said it had cancelled 15 flights to and from Manila, including the flights to and from Bangkok, Thailand and a flight to Nagoya, Japan.

PAL said it would also arrange replacement flights to accommodate the affected passengers of the said cancellations.

In a separate advisory, AirAsia said: “While flights have gradually resumed, further cancellations are being made to ensure the safety of passengers and aircraft.”

It said AirAsia guests travelling over the next few days should check the status of their flights on the airline’s official website.

Cebu Pacific said that its operations in and out of the NAIA “are now back to normal.”

“Passengers booked on cancelled flights may manage their booking before their scheduled time of departure through the Cebu Pacific website,” it added.

Manila International Airport Authority also announced on Tuesday its second day suspension of the “daily maintenance closure of NAIA’s main runway to give way for recovery flight operations.”

It noted that its runway 06-24 undergoes “derubberizing and degreasing” daily, from 1:30 a.m. to 3:30 a.m.

“We began accepting recovery flights from 10:00 p.m. last night to 4:00 a.m. this morning. We lifted the daily maintenance closure. We will do it again tonight until airlines are able to fully recover,” MIAA General Manager Eddie V. Monreal was quoted as saying in a statement.

NAIA partially resumed operations last Monday after more than 500 flights were affected by the eruption of Taal Volcano.

About 80,000 passengers and 516 flights were affected by Sunday’s volcanic eruption.