Experts sought for air navigation system upgrade

The government is looking for aviation experts to aid in the conduct of the feasibility study on establishment of a back-up system for the country’s air traffic navigation facility, which recently dealt with a technical issue that grounded hundreds of flights.

Roberto Lim, Transportation Undersecretary for aviation and airports, told the Inquirer they were targeting to do the feasibility study this year.

“We are engaging experts to advise CAAP (Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines) and DOTr (Department of Transportation),” he said on the sidelines of a recent event.

The DOTr previously raised the need to build a redundancy for the country’s communications, navigation, and surveillance/air traffic management (CNS/ATM) system to avoid a repeat of the Jan. 1 incident when it was shut down due to a power-related outage.

Part of the feasibility study is identifying the location for the back-up system, Lim said, which is the long-term solution to avoid the unfortunate shutdown of the country’s air space.

“On the medium term, [we] continue to replace the hardware that [we] need to replace,” he said.

A separate study about the possibility of privatizing the CNS/ATM system would also be conducted, the DOTr official said. He noted that, in some countries, the operations of the air navigation facility was separate from the regulation, which is the government’s role.

Lim said the government conducted an initial examination of the CNS/ATM system’s circuit breaker last week as part of its probe.

“As suspected … what’s inside, [it appears to have damage],” he said. INQ