Philippines airport scrambles after power cut strands thousands

The Philippines’ main gateway remained on reduced operations on Monday after a New Year power outage that jolted its air traffic control, with authorities
scrambling to resume full service after more than 300 flights were disrupted.
The ageing Ninoy Aquino international airport was early on Monday handling a maximum 15 arrivals per hour compared to 20 during normal operations, said Cesar Chiong, general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority.
The outage was the result of the unprecedented failure of both primary and secondary power supplies, he said.
“It will take around 72 hours or thereabout for the airlines to normalise their operations,” Chiong told ANC news channel.
There were 361 flights either delayed, cancelled or diverted to other regional airports on Sunday, affecting about 65,000 passengers, while numerous other flights were forced to re-route to avoid Philippine airspace.