MCIA GM Dicdican says runway repairs 14% done

THEY were just over 14 percent done in the airport runway repair project.

Steve Dicdican, Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) general manager, said this as he cited the progress of the airport runway repairs after three days of work with 588 meters of the runway having been overlaid with asphalt already.

Despite work going smoothly and some minor adjustments done in the first few days, Dicdican said that they would strictly implement the agreed runway closure schedule.

The runway will be closed from 1:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. starting Sept. 1 until Sept. 21 for the repairs.

“We have religiously followed the schedule for the past three days. There were requests to move the closure time to accommodate late flights, but we had to stick to the schedule because this is still a critical period for the project,” Dicdican said in a phone interview with Cebu Daily News on Monday.

He added that during the series of coordination meetings with the different airlines prior to the start of the runway closure, the MCIAA stressed that they will not entertain requests to adjust the runway closure period during the first week of the civil works.

Dicdican said in an earlier interview that the project would cost P250 million and would involve an asphalt overlay of 3.4 km of the runway.

Yesterday, he also said that after the first week, they might allow some minor adjustments of the closure period.

“We plan to do that if the weather cooperates and we make good work progress. When we can establish that we have sufficient allowance for work deviation, I’m okay with accommodating requests for adjusting the starting time of the runway closure,” he said.

In the first three days of the runway repair, Dicdican said they were making daily adjustments to improve.

He said the weather has been cooperative. But they also had to do some changes with the kind of equipment, the number of people, the methodologies, and the way personnel and equipment were deployed in order to ensure efficient works on the runway.

10 flights per day

Based on records from the MCIAA, an average of 10 flights per day, both domestic and international, had to be cancelled to give way for the runway repair.

The rest of the affected flights were only re-timed. Among the airlines with affected flights are Philippine Airlines, Philippines Air Asia, Cebu Pacific, CebuGo, and Jeju Air.

GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC), the private operator of the MCIA, said that despite the cancellations and changes, their operations had been going normally.

There were also no stranded passengers.

“So far, since day one of the runway closure, there were no stranded passengers noted because the airlines have informed their passengers of the flight adjustments,” said Avigael Maningo, GMCAC’s junior manager for corporate communications.