PAL to launch Clark-LA flights

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    CLARK FREEPORT — The Philippine Airlines (PAL) is ready to launch weekly flights between this freeport and Los Angeles. It will be the first direct route to the US mainland since the Clark International Airport was founded.

    A reliable source from PAL, who asked not to be named for lack of authority to reveal the plan, said the decision to launch such flight was requested by Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) president and CEO Alexander Cauguiran, one of those who had founded Move Clark Now movement that batted for the conversion of the airport left by the US Air Force here into an international gateway.

    “We will initially have one flight a week between Clark and Los Angeles as requested by Alex Cauguiran,” the source told Punto. The source, however, did not say when the flights would be launched.

    The full development of the Clark airport is part of the government’s plan to decongest the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Manila which was once dubbed the world’s worst airport in surveys by travel website The Guide to Sleeping in Airports.

    Transport Undersecretary Roberto Lim said the plan covers not only an expanded Clark airport northwest of the capital that could handle eight million passengers per year, but also another 2,500-hectare airport in Bulacan, also north of Manila, and possibly yet another airport and seaport in the former US naval station in Cavite province adjacent to Manila.

    The Department of Transportation is evaluating a proposal by conglomerate San Miguel Corp to build the P699 billion pesos ($14 billion) airport city complex in Bulacan, Lim said.

    Manila’s airport handled 36.7 million passengers in 2015 — more than the 30 million combined capacities of its terminals.

    Last year, 5.9 million tourists arrived in the Philippines, and the target is to attract 12 million by the year 2022, said Tourism Undersecretary Benito Bengzon Jr, adding that the government is developing more air routes to achieve its goal.

    Nearly 99 percent of arrivals in the Philippines, an archipelago, are through airports.

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