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CAAP in talks with French firm for third-party maintenance of air traffic system


The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) is currently negotiating with French firm Thales Group—one of the companies that provided the Philippines its Communication, Navigation and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) system—to serve as the system's third-party maintenance provider.

"We have been negotiating with Thales to get them as our third-party provider as far as maintenance is concerned," CAAP Director General Manuel Antonio Tamayo said on Thursday.

He disclosed this during the Senate public services committee investigation  into the January 1 Philippine airspace shutdown after he told the senators that the warranty for the system's maintenance expired in 2020.

"The CNS/ATM had a warranty that expired in 2020 and it is only up to that time that they [Thales and Sumitomo] are providing support as far as the CNS/ATM is concerned," Tamayo said.

The CNS/ATM system in the Philippines was procured through a deal with a Sumitomo-Thales joint venture.

Thales is in charge of the air traffic management system software, as explained by its country representative Harry Nuske. Meanwhile, Sumitomo is more of an "integrator" for the building and civil works, its resident representative Lloyd Chadwick Lim said.

Currently, Tamayo said, the "qualified and well-trained" CAAP technicians are maintaining the CNS/ATM.

"Our personnel, our technicians at CAAP are qualified and well-trained to maintain the system. In fact, they were trained by the Thales themselves aside from CAAP. They are well-experienced and they've been with CAAP for some time so they are the ones maintaining the [Air Traffic Management Center]," he said.

But Poe said there should be a third-party audit on the CNS/ATM, considering reports that the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) had malfunctioned and caused the airspace shutdown.

Tamayo said the UPS was maintained by Filipino company P2RO Inc. and it was last checked two years ago.

"The last time they checked the UPS system was two years when they changed the batteries," the CAAP chief said.

Asked by Poe if this is normal procedure, Sumitomo's Lim said there should be a regular maintenance of this component of the CNS/ATM and it would be beneficial for the CAAP to get a third-party expert to conduct an audit.

"Ideally, there should be regular maintenance aside from battery checks but DG Tamayo is correct when he says they actually have qualified people inside the CAAP [who have] been working with CAAP for a while, who should be able to maintain by themselves, but if they prefer to have and I agree totally with you [Poe] as well: having a third-party expert such as P2RO supplier would be beneficial," Lim said.

Lim added that when Sumitomo was maintaining the CNS/ATM it followed the equipment, operations and maintenance manual which requires daily, weekly, and monthly periodic checks.

Tamayo said they are "religiously following" the maintenance checks as provided under the manual and everything was logged by their technicians, including the "unusual parameters."

Although CAAP is already negotiating with Thales for the CNS/ATM's maintenance, Tamayo said the French firm is requiring the Philippine government to settle almost P1 billion in claims first before entering a new contract for the third-party maintenance service.

"They [Thales] gave us an offer and with the caveat that we have to settle first," Tamayo said.

Transportation Undersecretary for Aviations and Airports Roberto Lim said the Thales-Sumitomo joint venture's claims involve a total amount of P986,653,157.81 which was divided into three different types of claims:

  • Suspension claims worth P477 million. This is a consequence of the suspension of contract due to a notice of disallowance in 2011 which was eventually lifted in 2013.
  • Prolongation claim worth over P387 million. This is the consequence of the delay due to the suspension of the contract and the delay of the implementation of the work instruction by the Department of Transportation.
  • Price escalation claim worth over P121 million, which is a consequence of the delay of the project contractors.

On the other hand, the DOTr also has P644 million in claims against the joint venture. Lim said this is for the delay in the delivery of the system.

Lim said a solution committee was organized some time in 2020 and there were presentations of the position of the parties but the panel had denied the claims of the contractors.

For their part, Thales' Nuske said the French firm's stand is that it will not push through with a new contract for the CNS/ATM until the claims are resolved.

"The outstanding claims, particularly in the case of the suspension claim, has been outstanding since 2013. So the position of Thales is that we are not willing to enter into a new contract until we have resolved the outstanding claims of the existing contract," Nuske said.

While they are negotiating for a new contract, Nuske clarified that Thales can only handle the maintenance of the air traffic management software and not the power supply component.

"I should also add that the support service that we are discussing with CAAP relates to the ATMS software it does not relate to, for example, a UPS support. So it's a slightly different system, different technology to what the incident occurred on the first of January," he said. — BM, GMA Integrated News

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