Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Norman Tansingco is mulling sanctions against an airline involved in a security breach.
Tansingco issued the statement after the incident where a Congolaise passenger, who was earlier excluded, managed to leave the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 but was later apprehended on Tuesday.
The foreign national, identified as Tshapa Guimick Basaga, 31, was denied entry to the country last June 18 after arriving from Ethiopia for being likely to become a public charge.
Following immigration law, he was immediately turned over to the airline for boarding on the next available flight back to his port of origin, and was temporarily held at the airport’s day room prior to his return flight.
However, the airline on-duty security guard informed BI Border Control Intelligence Unit (BCIU) officers Monday evening that Basaga was missing from the airline’s custody.
Basaga was able to leave the airport day room premises and was able to proceed to the taxi bay outside.
He was later found inside the airport terminal again, after attempting to go to the immigration area to retrieve his passports.
“This is a major security breach as the subject has been denied entry, yet was able to exit Airport premises undetected,” said Tansingco. “By law, it is the airline’s responsibility to secure him and ensure that he boards his flight back,” he added.
BI mulls imposing fine, legal sanction against airline for security breach
Tansingco confirmed that Basaga was able to later that evening board his flight back to Ethiopia.
The BI Chief said that their legal team will study sanctions to be imposed against the airline.
Meanwhile, during a senate hearing on overbooking and offloaded passengers, CAB executive director Carmelo Arcilla stated that overbooking, or the practice of selling more tickets than the available seats on a flight, was “a global practice” that allowed airlines to fill vacant seats of “no-shows.”
Arcilla stated that there was a 10% overbooking limit in place prior to the implementation of the APBR.
“When APBR was issued, nawala ang 10 percent limit. Ang perception, merong effective counterweight in the sense na ang compensation package pag nag-overbook ang airline ay deterrent for abuse,” Arcilla said.
Visit our Facebook page for more news updates.