GOVERNMENT auditors have denounced the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) for shoddy record keeping after it was revealed that more than 23,000 passengers in domestic and international flights listed by local airlines did not appear in the lists of Terminals 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Random sampling by the audit team covering the months of January, April, May, June and August 2019 showed the remittance reports from the Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines showed there were 21,629 more passengers than those appearing in the list of MIAA Terminal Operations Group (TOG).
On the other hand, the report from Air Asia showed a reverse scenario — it had 669 less names compared to the MIAA-TOG list.
In the evaluation of international flights, the same problem was reported with Cebu Pacific and PAL listing 1,840 more passengers than those appearing on MIAA-TOG logs.
Again, Air Asia’s reports showed a different trend with MIAA-TOG listing 8,746 more international passengers compared to the airline company’s remittance report.
The Commission on Audit said the discrepancy in the listings was a violation of MIAA Memorandum Circular No. 06-M (s. 2016) which ordered the aviation agency to make a uniform and accurate data gathering on aircraft and passenger movements in all Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminals.
In its reaction to the audit findings, the MIAA management said it has implemented a financial management information system (FMIS) computerization project which the agency is banking on to achieve a reliable system of gathering and recording data on airline passenger traffic.
It said the system includes a module for TOG to coordinate with the airline company personnel to obtain information on flight an passenger load with a redundancy scheme through an electronic transfer of data from previous day’s summary.
The MIAA assured the COA that is it upgrading its systems to comply with MC No. 06-M to record passenger data accurately and on time.
The same memorandum assigned a four-level verification with TOG supposed to gather daily flight operations data and passenger statistics from Terminals 1 to 4; the Plans and Programs Division to prepare the monthly summary of flights and passenger data for submission to the MIAA’s assistant general manager; the Collection Division (CD) to log data on Certificates of Exemptions issued by the MIAA; and the terminal managers to oversee control and management of TOG personnel in monitoring accuracy of passenger traffic listing.
Hints of the problem surfaced after auditors found that the Collection Division had refused to use the TOG reports in validating the remittance reports from the airline companies.
“The CD did not use the said reports in validating the RRs (remittance reports) claiming that the same are not complete and/or not reliable. The RRs and the TOG reports do not tally as to number of passengers and exempted passengers,” the COA noted.
In its reaction to the audit findings, the MIAA management said it has implemented a financial management information system (FMIS) computerization project which the agency is banking on to achieve a reliable system of gathering and recording data on airline passenger traffic.
