CLARK FREEPORT – The board of the Land Bank of the Phlippines (LBP) has approved a P1-billion loan for the immediate upgrade the Clark International Airport (CIA) here in time for the arrival of the first non-stop Dubai-Clark aircraft of the Emirates Airlines starting this October 1.
Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) president and chief executive officer Victor Jose Luciano said in an interview here that the loan was granted by the bank after it was backed by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), the Department of Finance (DOF) and the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
“That’s a Land Bank loan approved by the board. It’s for our expansion (of the CIA) which needed the endorsement of our mother agency DOTC to the DOF and Monetary Board,” Luciano explained in a text message.
Luciano expressed optimism that the loan would be released soon after the granting of a waiver by the Commission on Elections on an election-related ban on public works constructions.
“We have finalized all things (for the first Emirates flight between Dubai and Clark),” he said.
In a statement released earlier in Singapore, Emirates said at least three flights from CIA to Dubai a week will start in October.
The possibility of flying from CIA to some European cities such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Madrid and Paris is also being considered, it said.
All of the flights from CIA will be using Boeing 777, an airline “beast of burden” that can carry 350 passengers and can travel 17,300 kilometers non-stop.
Renato Diaz, an investment banker and former congressman of Nueva Ecija and leader of the group that calls for transfer of some flights from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to CIA, said that the Emirates’ launching of regular flights to Clark “only proves airlines are now feeling the brunt of flying from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport because of the very clogged skies and tarmac there.”
“This move will lead to more transfers,” he said, noting reports that Emirates would transfer at least 30 percent of its flights to CIA after its passengers complained of delayed landing at NAIA because of lack of space at the tarmac.”
Emirates has been operating flights to Manila since 1990 and continued to increase its flight frequency in the route to its current triple daily, non-stop service.
Luciano said that the P1 billion would upgrade the CIA terminal to enable it to accommodate more passengers from bigger Emirates aircraft.
“We will have separate 36 more check-in coun-ters, we will widen the entrance to the airport from two to four lanes, we will replace the small tubes with so-called two (forking) fingers,” he said.
Luciano said the cost would also cover bigger pre-departure area over a site where an air-conditioned makeshift tent has been built to accommodate the growing number of passengers at the airport.
Meanwhile, Diaz also said “the biggest winners here are the overseas Filipino workers who live in the north because they don’t need to go to Manila if they are going home for vacation or even those first time to go abroad.”
He estimated that majority of the 12 million OFWs are not from Metro Manila but in nearby provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Pangasinan and even farther north in the Ilocos region.
“They are heroes as what the government calls them. Now let’s give additional service to these heroes because many of them have no business in National Capital Region,” he said.
Diaz downplayed criticisms that the CIA is too far from Metro Manila, as he noted that “China, England and Vietnam will put extension in their airports at the capital far from the place.”
