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Clark to service 1.5M tourists this year

MANILA, Philippines – The government is confident that the number of foreign and local tourists using the Clark International Airport would double to 1.5 million this year as the volume of passengers using the gateway in Pampanga surged 63 percent in the first eight months of the year.

Clark International Airport Corp. president and chief executive officer Victor Jose Luciano said about 806,574 passengers used the international airport in Pampanga from January to August this year or 310,857 higher than the 495,717 passengers in the same period last year.

“It was a phenomenal growth. This manifests that Clark International Airport is showing its potential to become the next premier gateway of the country,” Luciano stressed.

This year’s projected volume of passengers is more than double the 725,023 passengers serviced by the airport last year.

Luciano attributed the passenger growth to higher number of international and domestic flights by low cost and full service carriers such as Air Asia Philippines, Airphil Express, South East Asian Airlines (Seair) in partnership with the Singapore based Tiger Airways and Dragonair a subsidiary of Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific.

For one, he said AirAsia alone would carry around five million passengers within the next five to seven years with more destinations.

He pointed out that CIAC would continue to provide a better air travel transport to the travelling public particularly the overseas Filipino workers particularly those coming from the Northern Luzon area.

He pointed out that the volume of passengers who used the Clark International Airport for the first eight months of this year has already surpassed the overall passenger volume in 2011.

For the month of August alone, data showed that total passenger volume surged to 117,488 compared to 56,328 in the same month last year.

In the next two months, the Clark International Airport is set to receive its five millionth passenger since operating in November 2003. In 2007, the airport received its one millionth passenger via Asiana Airlines flight that arrived from Incheon in South Korea.

The Clark International Airport is catering 316 aircraft movements a week as a result of the new flights in both international and domestic routes.

The Aquino administration is spending P360 million to expand the airport’s existing passenger terminal to accommodate the expected influx of passengers at the airport.
 

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Source: Lawrence Agcaoili, The Philippine Star. (15 September 2012)

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