By Lawrence Agcaoili (The Philippine
Star) | Updated October 3, 2013 - 12:00am
CLARK, Pampanga, Philippines —
Construction of the proposed P7.2-billion low cost carrier terminal at the
Clark International Airport is expected to kick off in the second quarter of
next year.
Victor Jose Luciano, president and
chief executive officer of Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC), said on
the sidelines of the press conference of Emirates on the inaugural
Dubai-Clark-Dubai non-stop flights that construction of the budget terminal
would take two years and would be completed by the second quarter of 2016.
Luciano said the proposed terminal
would have a capacity of between 10 million and 15 million.
According to him, the government is
looking whether it could fund the project or tap the private sector through the
public private partnership (PPP) scheme.
Diversified conglomerate San Miguel
Corp. (SMC) and infrastructure giant Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC)
earlier offered to fund the construction of a new passenger terminal in the
former US military airbase.
Luciano added that Aeroport de Paris
of France has offered to conduct the detailed and design study for the proposed
passenger terminal.
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Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio
Abaya said the Aquino administration is pushing for the construction of the
proposed low cost carrier terminal to cope with passenger growth in line with
the long-haul flights of Emirates and Qatar Airways.
“The government is currently studying the
concept of a low cost carrier terminal at Clark Airport, because of its
potential as gateway of the country,” Abaya said. The DOTC said President
Aquino is fully supportive of the Middle East flights of Emirates via the
Dubai-Clark route.
“Rest assured that the government continues to
attract more airlines especially foreign carriers to mount flights at our
airports in the country,” Abaya said.
Airlines that are expected to benefit
from the proposed terminal include Cebu Air Inc. (Cebu Pacific), AirAsia Berhad
of Malaysia, Jin Air of South Korea, Tiger Air Philippines, Asiana Airlines of
South Korea, and Dragonair of Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific.
Meanwhile, Luciano revealed that the
ongoing expansion of the existing passenger terminal valued at P360 million
that started last July is expected to be completed six months ahead of
schedule.
“The way things are going, the
construction phase would be completed by December of this year, instead of the
June 2014 deadline,” Luciano said.
He pointed out that the expanded
passenger terminal is designed to accommodate five million passengers
annually.Last year, the volume of passengers using the gateway surged 71
percent to 1.3 million passengers from 767,000 in 2011. – With Ding Cervantes
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