MANILA — A think tank is calling for the resignation of airport officials following a New Year's Day travel fiasco that forced hundreds of flights to be canceled, delayed or diverted.

In an ANC interview on Wednesday, Infrawatch PH convenor Terry Ridon described the air traffic mess as a "high-level failure of leadership".

"More than a power failure, this is a high-level failure of leadership by the CAAP (Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines) officials and therefore, I think for them to be self-respecting officials, an offer to resign ought to be undertaken to the President in the soonest time," he told "Rundown".

The fiasco, which affected over tens of thousands of passengers, is an "international embarrassment," according to Infrawatch PH.

"For whatever excuse that they may have, whether it is power failure, whether it is, UPS (uninterrupted power supply), whether negligence is what they say is the reason for this international embarrassment, their needs to be a high-level accountability from officials of the CAAP for this mess," Ridon.

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Aviation authorities detected a "technical issue" on Sunday morning involving the air traffic management center at Manila's domestic and international airport.

The outage hit as many people began returning to the capital for work and school after the Christmas and New Year break.

Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said the air traffic management center, which controls inbound and outbound flights, "went down" due to a power outage that resulted in the loss of communication, radio, radar and internet.

"The secondary problem was the power surge due to the power outage which affected the equipment," he said.

In a statement, CAAP explained the loss of power in the Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management System was due to a problem in the electrical network with its UPS.

The ATMS failed, triggering an almost 10-hour shutdown of Philippine airspace.

"If they say it's a UPS problem, it is in fact a maintenance problem and we are not accepting the excuse of CAAP officials that an upgrade is urgently needed because had they had the foresight of undertaking periodic scheduled upgrades on their UPS equipment, this incident would not have had happened on New Year's Day or on any other day," Ridon said.

The CAAP on Tuesday said the country's air traffic system was "not completely obsolete" and undergoes regular maintenance. But the agency also acknowledged that upgrades are necessary, expenses for which are being estimated by CAAP engineers.

Malacañang has vowed a thorough probe of the incident. The Senate will also conduct an inquiry into the travel mess that disrupted hundreds of flights in and out of the country.

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— With reports from Davinci Maru, ABS-CBN News; Agence France-Presse