TACLOBAN CITY- Airline passengers using the Daniel Z. Romualdez (DZR) Airport has to endure more days before they could enjoy using big jets.
This after the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), which runs the Tacloban airport, said that the return of big jets was scheduled on May 10, this year.
However, the date imposed by the CAAP may just stretch to for more days, depending on the weather condition in Tacloban.
Earlier, the CAAP said that the entire runway of the Tacloban airport, which severely damaged when it was submerged during the onslaught of supertyphoon “Yolanda” will be in use by April 30.
The deadline, however, did not materialized as the repair of the remaining 300 meters of the runway’s 2,140 meters is still ongoing.
The runway restrictions for big airplanes started last April 14. At present, only turbo propeller planes are allowed to use the airport’s runway.
Allan Cahingcoy, assistant area manager of CAAP-Tacloban, said that out of the original 600 meters of the runway that need to be repaved, 300 meters are left to be finished for the airport to accommodate big jets.
However, due to bad weather, the contractor failed to meet the April 30 deadline to finish the work.
As of Monday, of the 300 meters that still to be resurfaced, the BM Enterprises, the contractor of the P107 million project, has so far work 30 percent covering 22.5 X180 meters, said Cahingcoy.
It was learned that they need two days of work for every single day of delay.
“They need whole day of sunlight for them to really finish their resurfacing work,” Cahingcoy said.
“But we are pressuring them to finish the work by May 10. But this will all depend on good weather,” he added.
The DZR Airport has a runway of 2,140 meters and for it to accommodate big jets, it need at least 1,800 meters.
Before the restrictions, the DZR handles 14 daily flights to Cebu and Manila.
With the restrictions, it can only accommodate seven flights- four for Cebu and two for Manila flights.
Cahingcoy said that they are confident that they could meet the new deadline agreed by both parties specially that the annual fiesta of Tacloban is drawing near.
Tacloban celebrates its fiesta on June 30 with thousands of tourists coming over.
