Tacloban City, Philippines — With the ongoing construction of the baggage carousel at the DZR Airport in Tacloban, the perennial problem of unsystematic and spending too much time claiming for travelers’ pieces of baggage, will already be solved.
Ms. Merla Negradas, the manager of the Air Transportation Office in the Region, informed that the installation of the airport baggage carousel started in the last week of October and is now on-going.
Because of the on-going construction, the arrival area has been temporarily transferred to the VIP Lounge, Manager Negradas informed, as she called on the airline passengers to bear with the temporary inconveniences brought about by the installation.
The baggage carousel, Manager Negradas informed, is not brand new. It came from the old domestic airport of Iloilo which have been closed to give way to a new airport. It would be recalled that the new Iloilo Airport was inaugurated few months ago.
Negradas, however, assured that the baggage carousel is functional and has now a brand new appearance as it underwent a rehabilitation process and it now looks brand new.
The installation of the airport amenity is expected to be finished early next month. Sources from the ATO disclosed that todate, some spare parts particularly the friction drive which is the mechanism that will make the carousel operational, and the engineer who will install the amenity, are still being awaited to arrive in Tacloban.
The spareparts are still in Iloilo but will be sent to Tacloban this afternoon, Mr. Diorico Ellema, the administrative officer of ATO Tacloban informed. The installation is supposed to be finished within six days, he said, unfortunately some spareparts were left in Iloilo.
The carousel transfer and rehabilitation would cost the ATO Central Office about P900,000.00, Manager Negradas said. She is happy that the ATO head office decided to send it to Tacloban instead of the original plan of sending it to another airport,
For the first time, the Tacloban Airport arriving passengers will now have the same amenity of a baggage carousel just like other airports, Manager Negradas concluded.