FOR three days, the country’s main international gateway had to shut down its operations following a runway mishap that caused complete chaos in Manila’s four terminals and airport gates around the world.

It took the government over 36 hours to remove a Xiamen Airlines plane that skidded off the only commercially available runway of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), canceling and diverting hundreds of flights, and generating losses that authorities could only peg at millions of pesos.

Tuesday saw the operations of the Naia returning to normal. And while this was a welcome development, the time and effort wasted on addressing such an issue only reflected how unprepared the airport is, and how dismal the aero facilities of the Philippines are.

Avelino L. Zapanta, touted as one of the pillars of Philippine aviation, said losses from potential gains and additional costs incurred could have been lessened if only the government had adopted a twin-airport strategy.

He said that in such a scenario, both the Naia and Clark International Airport will be developed to handle higher volumes of traffic and address emergency situations like airport closure.

“For some years now, a few of us in the industry have been pushing for dual-airport operation. It calls for the development of both Naia and Clark to share the volume of traffic in and out of the National Capital Region and Central Luzon; to address situations like airport closure of either of the two such as the Xiamen Air incident; and to address the needs of the air travel market segments,” he told the BusinessMirror.

Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade described the Xiamen incident is an “eye opener,” noting the issue is a reminder for the government to revisit several regulations and protocols, as well as review equipment inventory and evaluate the current facilities and capabilities of the airport.

He also noted how hard it is to recover the disabled aircraft, given the muddy terrain that it overshot to. The government had to rent a high-capacity telescopic crane for P15 million for the jet that had 4 tons of unused fuel in its wings—to be safely recovered.