Temperatures and tempers rising at GIAA

by Nick Delgado

Guam - Things have been heating up at the A.B. Won Pat International Airport Authority for several months now. The situation has been so bad that some visiting tourists have literally passed out before even getting their first look at the island paradise they paid to vacation at.

It's not just the temperature that's rising at the airport. "It's very unfortunate that we have a lot of travelers coming through arriving and departing and a lot of people working throughout the airport as well that are exposed to these uncomfortable circumstances," said airport executive manager Chuck Ada. He says the facility had four air conditioning chillers but one has been deemed completely inoperable.  A second was taken off line for preventive maintenance and a power fluctuation on Friday morning caused a third chiller to go offline.

With only one chiller working, temperatures and frustrations at the airport in the terminal and around the entire facility are rising and fast. "The preventive maintenance work on the current system will be completed in the next five days and should bring the system back up to 80 percent even with the two chillers running," he said.

Ada says the airport is in the process of entering into an $11.9 million energy performance contract with JCI. The project will include a complete overhaul on the air conditioner system that is more than 15 years old as well as upgrading lighting and the fire alarm system.

He expects the funds will be closed this week. "Once we do that we can move forward with actually placing the order for the entire new air conditioner system which we expect 8-10 weeks from that date," he added.

In the meantime, the airport has forked out more than $100,000 to purchase air conditioning handling units and fans to help cool things down in target areas of the airport. "We've actually placed air cooling units throughout the terminal we're focusing on the ticket counters and in the Immigration and Customs areas," he said.

Ada confirms that several passengers have passed out from the lack of cool air in the screening area so airport officials made sure to put portable coolers in those areas. "It is the summer, it's quite warm, so we ask everyone to bear with us," he said.

Ada is hopeful that with this week's closing, the airport will see lower temperatures and frustration in the next few months.