Published on 21 February 2013 [
manilatimes.net ]
Written by Rosalie C. Periabras
The Clark
International Airport Corp. (CIAC) said that it is has a plan to build a
P6-billion budget airline terminal in the former Clark US Air Force Base to
accommodate increasing passenger traffic in the next two years.
“Well, it’s
going to be in the billion, almost P6 billion for budget terminal [that can
accommodate 15 million passengers] and you can put it through PPP
[Public-Private Partnership],” said Benjamin Solis, adviser to CIAC.
According to
Solis, the feasibility study for the budget terminal would be presented to the
National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) in March, or April.
“The existing
terminal is not enough to accommodate Clark International Airport’s increasing
traffic,” he said.
Currently,
the capacity of the airport is only two million passengers.
“Assuming
everything goes well with the paper works, the budget terminal will be in place
by 2017,” Solis said.
CIAC had
planned to have a budget terminal by 2015 and the proposed project is expected
to accommodate 15 million passengers.
In 2012, the
Clark International Airport recorded 1.3 million passengers, up 71 percent from
767,000 in 2011.
At present,
low-cost carrier flying at the Clark airport include Cebu Pacific, AirAsia,
Airphil Express, Southeast Asian Airlines-Tiger, Asiana Airlines, JinAir, and
Spirit of Manila Airlines. Emirates Airline will start flying from Clark in
October this year.
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