LOOK: Korean Air flight #KE631 slid off the runway while landing at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport on Sunday, Oct. 23. All 173 passengers were evacuated safely with minor injuries reported. | AFP Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Flights in and out of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) may have resumed on Tuesday, October 25.
But the country’s second busiest airport is expected return to its normal operations in November yet.
Officials from the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) and GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corporation (GMCAC) on Tuesday confirmed that they have allowed flights to depart and land MCIA at 8 a.m.
They permitted planes to depart the airport last Monday but for a limited period only. Only Jeju Air, bound for South Korea, managed to leave MCIA then.
Since the damaged Airbus 330 jet of Korean Air has yet to be removed from the runway, airport officials decided to utilize 2.7 kilometers of the 3.3 kilometer-runway.
“We’re happy we are open now but it’s not yet done. The sacrifices and efforts of our airport personnel and workers will continue… There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done,” said lawyer Glenn Napuli, MCIAA assistant general manager.
In turn, current operations are done at a limited capacity.
Flights are only permitted to land and take off between 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. within the next 14 days.
“MCIAA cannot accommodate evening flights due to the damaged approach lights,” said Napuli.
Napuli pointed out that several runway lights, including the threshold lights, were damaged after Korean Air flight KE631 crash-landed on the airport’s runway on Sunday, October 23.
“We had to install new threshold lights,” said Napuli.
Threshold lights are used to indicate which parts of the runway can be used for landing and take-off.
Aside from runway lighting, other airport infrastructures were also damaged following Sunday’s incident.
Napuli said it would take them around two weeks to complete these repairs, if the weather permits.
On the other hand, airport personnel will begin relocating Korean Air flight KE631 after they have successfully siphoned all of its 2,500 liters of fuel.
They have also unloaded a total of 1,700 kilograms of cargo from the jet.
According to airport officials, it would take them around two to three days to transfer the A330 jet, which weighs up to 242 tons, out of the runway.
“And we’re also hoping the weather will be in our favor,” said Napuli.
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