Authorities of the Clark International Airport Corp. here have announced that “with the national government finally pushing for the immediate full utilization of the Clark International Airport, this year may be last balloon fiesta at Clark.”
“Given the full support of Pres. Duterte and Transportation Sec. Tugade for the immediate development of Clark airport, the CIAC will recommend to concerned parties that next year’s hot air balloon fiesta be held outside of the immediate air space of Clark airport,” said CIAC president Alexander Cauguiran.
“While we also subscribe to the objective of the hot air balloon fiesta to promote local tourism around Clark, priority must be given to the increasing number of commercial airlines at Clark. More commercial flights at Clark would mean a limited window of hours that hot air balloons may fly around Clark freeport,” Cauguiran said.
CIAC said “the three year Memorandum of Agreement entered into in 2014 by the Clark Development Corp., the Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta Foundation and CIAC will expire this year.”
Meanwhile, Ritche Nacpil, CIAC manager for airport operations, assured that “no commercial flights at Clark will be affected by the hot air balloon fiesta. In fact, it is an explicit instruction from CIAC President Cauguiran that no balloon will take off until the only commercial flight scheduled to depart at 7 a.m., which is the Cebu Pacific flight to Hong Kong, had already left.”
“During the past 20 years that the balloon fiesta was held at Clark, no commercial flight has been delayed due to this event,” Nacpil said.
