Vol. XXII, No. 32 [ BusinessWorld Online ]
Tuesday, September 9, 2008 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
THE GOVERNMENT is proceeding to develop the commercial air transport system of Central Luzon in order to decongest Manila airports.
The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) said it has been seeking more flights between Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in the Clark Freeport, Pampanga, and key hubs around the world, as it expects more demand for air travel from Asia and the Pacific.
CAB Deputy Executive Director Porvenir P. Porciuncula said in an interview yesterday, "we have a policy to get more flights to Clark."
He said this was in accordance with President Gloria M. Arroyo’s directive to develop the area as the "premier gateway to the Philippines."
Since last April, negotiations with air panels from Macau, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Iran, have resulted in flight entitlements between these countries and the Philippines, mainly operating through the latter’s international airports in Manila and Clark.
The next set of negotiations for entitlements will be on Sept. 29-30 between the Philippines and Finland.
More entitlements to Canada, Japan, Malaysia and Spain will also be sought before the year ends.
Mr. Porciuncula said that Clark’s airport system is better than that of Manila, since its two parallel runways allow for two different aircraft to take off and land simultaneously, a feat impossible with the Manila airport system’s perpendicular runways.
He said the Clark runway’s configuration minimizes delays and makes operations more efficient.
Mr. Porciuncula said the "main consideration" in seeking more flights for Clark is the number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from the Northern and Central Luzon provinces.
Alexander S. Caguiran, executive vice-president of the Clark International Airport Corp., said in a separate interview yesterday that more than half of the country’s OFWs come from Northern and Central Luzon.
To accommodate this market, he said the Clark airport authorities plan to build a P6.5-billion terminal, which will be designed to accommodate up to seven million passengers a year.
Once built, the new terminal will dwarf Clark’s existing terminal, capable of two million passengers yearly.
Developing the Clark airport system "is really needed since the Manila airports are already congested," he said. He said the passengers that the Manila terminals will not be able to accommodate need the option of having more than just one airport system.
The new international terminal will be built beside the smaller terminal, which in turn will be converted into a domestic terminal.
The new terminal is expected to begin operations by early 2010, Mr. Caguiran said.
He said the potential market of eight million passengers for the Clark terminals will come from Northern and Central Luzon, and even northern Metro Manila.
He said that the envisioned new Clark terminal will complement the congested Manila international airport system, which is composed of Ninoy Aquino International Airport terminals 1, 2 the newly opened terminal 3, as well as the Manila Domestic airport.
Manila International Airport Authority officials have said the old airport system, which excludes terminal 3, was running at a combined capacity of 22 million passengers a year.
This is above 18-million passengers annually, which was the combined capacity the three terminals had been designed originally to accommodate.
Terminal 3, which is capable of handling 13 million passengers a year, is expected to alleviate the old system’s congestion, and make way for improvements of the older terminals.
The new Manila terminal is currently running at 60% of its capacity, housing the operations of Cebu Pacific, PAL (Philippines Airlines) Express, and Air Philippines. — Paolo Luis G. Montecillo
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