Manila airport power outage causes chaos, Qantas flight return

Been in and out of Manila airport enough times to know that place already completely chaotic with the lights and power on. Cannot imagine it without juice.

Been there several times. The Airport is old, old, old. Very crowded and very uncomfortable. It's very hard to navigate yourself through the boarding unless you pay somebody. Getting your luggage after you land and then go through their screening process to catch your next flight is a nightmare.

On the other hand go to Cebu and their new international terminal Mactan and it's beautiful, organized and easy to get in and out of.

We happened to be at NAIA when this happened several years ago. The reason behind it was that the back up generators were to small for the total load of the airport. We ended up being delayed for several hours and the airport management was totally unsympathetic stating just bad luck, no apologies.

Having lived in Manila and been forced to fly in and out of that disgusting dump of an airport it doesn't surprise me in the least - BUT - there is NO EXCUSE for an airport and it's systems to be compromised by there being no UPS for critical systems and gensets that can take on the entire load in the event of a failure caused by incoming supply outages - ESPECIALLY in a place with dodgy power like Manila.
Not acceptable at all - the services provided are critical and directly affect life-safety systems.

No ATC comm/RADAR available...
Unless you work or have family obligations in Manila you may want to dump that destinaion airport for good.

Scary to think the airspace had to be closed around it along with the airport. Guess they dont have emergency gensets to power things.