PH banks, airlines back to normal
The banking and airline industries in the Philippines, which were directly affected by the global outage of tech giant Microsoft on Friday, had restored much of their operations by Saturday.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Friday night it had been monitoring the outage and required financial institutions under its supervision to “provide updates and activate their resilience and continuity plans.”
The BSP said, “The financial system remains resilient, with alternative channels and digital platforms available for individuals and businesses.”
Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), BDO Unibank, Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. (Metrobank) and state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines all said their digital channels were already restored by Friday night.
Canceled flights
The Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) said operations at the country’s gateway, Ninoy Aquino International Airport, was “normalized” at 11 p.m. on Friday. But at least 45 domestic and international flights were canceled the next day, following the outage.
Passengers experience canceled and delayed flights at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Terminal 3, Pasay City on Friday evening, July 20, 2024, as the global outage of technology giant Microsoft has affected the system of budget carrier Cebu Pacific and Air Asia, but the operations of international carriers in the Philippines remained unaffected as of 4 p.m. on Friday, according to a statement issued by the Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa).
INQUIRER PHOTO / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
Eight local and international airlines were affected, according to Miaa—AirAsia, Cebu Pacific, Eithad, Jeju Air, Jetstar Asia, Jetstar Japan, Scoot and Hong Kong Express.
Cebu Pacific and its sister company Cebgo canceled 34 flights on Friday and 38 on Saturday.
Carmina Romero, the airline’s communications director, said on Saturday morning that flight operations would take some time to normalize.
‘Significant progress’
But by 1:30 p.m., Cebu Pacific said its technical teams had made “significant progress” in restoring its system.
AirAsia said its system was back online by 2 p.m. on Saturday, but added that there could still be “multiple delays and cancellations.”
At Davao International Airport, 1,400 passengers were stranded on Friday night due to flights affected by the outage.
But that number had dwindled to 39 by Saturday, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines. —WITH A REPORT FROM IAN NICOLAS P. CIGARAL
