Xiamen Air to be charged at least P15M by MIAA

Xiamen Air may have to pay the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) at least P15 million to cover equipment and manpower costs incurred in clearing the airline’s plane from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) runway.

In an interview on Tuesday, MIAA general manager Ed Monreal said the amount is just an “initial” estimate airport authorities are looking at against Xiamen Air as penalties for the incident involving Flight MF8667.

“Initial pa lang ’yan,” Monreal told GMA News Online. “Let’s wait for the full report on the expenses.”

He said MIAA spent about P4 million for the crane it used to lift the Boeing 737 aircraft off the NAIA’s runway 06/24.

The airport authority is  also looking at holding the airline accountable for lost revenue from landing and take-off fees due to the runway closure.

In an earlier interview on ANC, Monreal said that Xiamen Air may face a heftier bill once the losses have been fully tallied.

“Right now, there’s only two aspects that we ... just computed. I think in the range of P15M but there’s still a lot of cost,” he said. “They said they will cooperate ... We’re still ... to compute.”

Xiamen Air issued an official apology to the MIAA and the passengers affected by delays and canceled flights.

The airline provided food and water to passengers stranded at the airport. Other airlines which canceled flights did the same.

Monreal said other airlines may file separate cases against Xiamen Air to recover their own losses.

“For the consequences, that will be (up to) the passengers or the airlines, if they wanna file a case against the Xiamen Airlines,” he said.

“What we will do is basically ... the damage and expense incurred by the authorities, because we don’t have a basis for the other consequences or damages,” Monreal added. —with Rie Takumi/KG/KBK/VDS, GMA News