In a roundtable meeting organized by the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) with the JFC on Tuesday, Ebb Hinchliffe, AmCham executive director, said “the geography of (Metro) Manila just doesn’t support (NAIA) where it is, and is not long-term viable.”
Alexander Cauguiran, president and chief executive officer of the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC), presented to the group an update on the airport’s development, saying “CIAC’s plans are aligned with the joint foreign chambers’ advocacy on infrastructure, through the JFC’s The Arangkada Philippines Project, to increase investment and employment in the Philippines.”
However, of the P2.9 billion already set aside by Congress in the 2016 and 2017 budgets for the construction of the new passenger terminal at the Clark airport, only P6.6 million have been released so far by the Department of Transportation.
In 2016, Arangkada Philippines called for a new Clark airport terminal, “to incentivize lowcost carriers to develop hubs at Clark, to exploit airport infrastructure and road networks, and to create new commercial and residential hubs at Clark to decongest Metro Manila.”
Earlier, AmCham senior adviser John Forbes said the new airport terminal in Clark “should be built in the next two years, with a non-stop fast train connecting service similar to that in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Tokyo to elevate traffic congestion.”
This, even as Benjamin Solis, chief executive officer of South East Asian International (SEAIR), said “Clark should be the proper alternative and the idea of decongesting (Metro) Manila should be moving the industries and the government offices either north or south of the metropolis.”
The present NAIA grows at an average of two million passengers a year for the last seven years, he noted.
Cauguiran said CIAC immediately went to work upon heeding President Duterte’s statement in his first SONA in 2016 that the Clark airport can be utilized to shift some operations of domestic and international airlines.
“Here we are, so far, and soon, Clark airport will have a new passenger terminal building before President Duterte’s term ends, thanks to the leadership of (Transportation) Secretary Art Tugade,” Cauguiran said.
CIAC said Clark airport serviced 950,732 passengers in 2016. This year, the airport is expected to service approximately 1.5 Million passengers.
Clark airport has 138 weekly international flights and 94 weekly domestic flights. These will be increased with the expansion of operations of domestic carriers, specifically PAL, Cebu Pacific Air, AirAsia, Wakay Air, and SEAIR Philippines.
Negotiations are also on-going for more international carriers to start operations at Clark airport by mid-2017, CIAC said.
“Clark will become cemented as the logical choice. Hopefully we’ll get over the point where there’s a terminal and there will be momentum,” Jaime Faustino, program director of The Asia Foundation, said.
Among the priority projects of the national government’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ program is a Manila-Clark airport express rail that is targeted for completion in 2021. This project is in addition to the Clark-Subic railway project that is planned for completion in 2020.
