Flights during the holiday season were ''significantly higher'' compared to the past two years and will remain so until the New Year, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said Monday.

In a “Laging Handa” briefing, BI spokesperson Dana Krizia Sandoval said: “During Christmas eve, our total arrivals was around 32,000. Most of them landed in Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). On December 25, around 29,968 people arrived.”“For the departures, there were 22,248 departures on Christmas eve while there were 27,934 departures on Christmas day. And this is significantly higher than the last two years,” she added.

Sandoval said they expect arrivals and departures to remain high during the holiday.

“Our projection all the way until New Year is that the arrivals will be quite high because Filipinos are coming home and celebrating Christmas and New Year here. Departures usually increase because the Filipinos who live abroad and OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) go back to the country they came from,” Sandoval said.

Sandoval attributed the increase in flights to the loosening of travel restrictions during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling it a “good sign”.

“The past two years were quite sad for airports because of the pandemic, but because we see that more people feel more confident to travel again, we can say tourism and international travel sector is really on the rebound,” Sandoval said.

Sandoval said they have added more BI officers to manage the influx of travelers.

“We have deployed additional personnel from different offices of the BI to augment the manpower in the airports,” Sandoval said.

“Aside from that, we also have this new batch of immigration officers that can help process the people traveling this season. We have designated a response team that we can immediately deploy in case we need more personnel. And of course, our e-gates are fully functional and can be used by travelers,” she added.

Sandoval said the BI recently attended the Tokyo Immigration Forum where countries discussed the challenges their airports face with the surge of travelers after the pandemic and how to solve them. Jaspearl Tan/DMS