Travellers not required to remove shoes at Manila airport

Manila: The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) has eased its rules concerning passenger shoe inspection with the exception of flyers leaving for the United States.

Jose Angel Honrado, MIAA general manager, said the new policy, which will take effect November 1, is expected to be welcomed by passengers who had suffered much inconvenience by having to remove their footwear whenever they enter the airport’s boarding area.

“Passengers will surely be delighted by this development as this will further speed up their departure process. This is also our modest contribution to government efforts to improve frontline services in airports and seaports,” Honrado added.

“Starting November 1, 2012, shoe inspection at the final security checkpoints in all departure areas at the NAIA terminals will no longer be mandatory under ‘Normal Alert’ conditions. Screeners may only ask passengers to remove their shoes if the alarm of the walk-thru metal detector is triggered or a passenger is randomly selected for shoe screening every 10 to 20 passengers,” he said.

On the other hand, Honrado said the reason why they are maintaining the requirement of footwear removal for passengers leaving for the US is because the United States Department of Homeland Security mandates so.

It can be recalled that US carriers had initially implemented the requirement of removing footwear at a certain point during passenger departure as a measure against terrorist who might “shoe bombs.”

In December 22, 2001, American passenger Richard Reid attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight from France to Miami, Florida using a shoe bomb packed with plastic explosive. The scheme was foiled by an alert flight attendant. Since then, the US Federal Aviation Authority mandates all passengers from all flights to and from US to undergo footwear inspection.

In the Philippines, the MIAA and other airports adopted such inspections on a later date.

Meanwhile, in a bid to scare off errant birds at the MIAA that could pose hazards to aircraft safety, the authority announced said that they are planning to acquire a sonic device to scare birds away.

The P45 million (Dhs 3.99 million) devise will use powerful speakers to emit sound to scare the birds in a more modern version of the farmer’s scare crow.

Bird strikes are a major concern at the MIAA which is located near an area frequented by migratory fowl.

Just last evening (Oct 23), a Philippine Airlines (PAL) Airbus A 320 carrying more than 152 passengers and crew sustained a bird strike as the errant fowl hit one of the wings of the aircraft. PAL said no passenger or crewmember was injured in the accident.