THE COUNTRY’S Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) — recently reported as being one of the worst in the world — is being readied for a P1-billion upgrade that can be completed within a year, a National Competitiveness Council (NCC) official yesterday said.
“Estimated cost of the interior is around P500 million and the exterior would cost around P500 million as well,” NCC private sector co-chairman Guillermo M. Luz told BusinessWorld in a telephone interview.
“The rehabilitation should take only around eight to 12 months and it won’t require a complete shutdown of the airport,” he added.
Rehabilitation plans for the NAIA, specifically for the three-decade old Terminal 1, were said to be the result of a six-month long effort coordinated by the NCC with a team of industrial designers and officials from the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA).
“The design team has mapped out the construction by section and the sequence in which they will be done, so certain parts can be cordoned off while the others are in operation. Certain facilities can be ready as early as eight months,” Mr. Luz said.
“If the bidding can be done within the year or early next year, it’s very possible that we will have the new airport by early 2013. The terms of reference are nearly done anyway, and we are only waiting for the MIAA board to approve the project then it can be published for bidding,” he continued.
The team included architects Budji Layug and Royal Pineda and furniture designer Kenneth Cobonpue. A three-minute video walkthrough of the plan appeared on Mr. Cobonpue’s Facebook page last week.
While proposals have been made to shut the facility and move overseas flights to the Clark International Airport in Pampanga, Mr. Luz said this was implausible.
“The airport has to be as near as possible to the main business districts which are in Metro Manila. In Hong Kong and Bangkok, the airports are 50 kilometers away or less. The farthest would be the Narita International Airport in Japan, which is 70 kilometer from Tokyo,” he explained.
“But Clark is around a 100 kilometers away and that will only be doable if we have a high speed rail that can cut down the travel time to less than an hour. Even then, these projects involving Clark would take around two to three years to complete.”
The design team and the NCC also noted that NAIA’s four terminals, which serviced 27.1 million passengers last year, were expected to hit their combined top capacity of 31 million within the next two years, with Terminal 1 and the Centennial Terminal 2 receiving the bulk of the traffic. Diverting flights to Clark alone, therefore, would not solve the problem of airline decongestion.
The NAIA upgrade aims for dramatic improvements in decongesting traffic without expanding the current facility. The design team decided that the Philippines should set itself apart in terms of service and comfort rather than size. — E. J. Diaz
Fare hikes okayed for Singapore Airlines
SINGAPORE Airlines Ltd. has been allowed to hike fares for flights from Manila, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) announced during the weekend.
“Please be advised that … [Singapore Airlines’ request] for authority to increase its published fares from Manila to Singapore, together with the attached fare, destination, inclusion, restrictions and conditions is hereby approved,” Carmelo L. Arcilla, CAB executive director, said in a letter published in a newspaper on Saturday.
The letter, addressed to Teodoro A. Pastrana, counsel for Singapore Airlines, did not indicate how much increase will be slapped on the fares. Representatives of the carrier were not immediately available for comment.
Singapore Airlines was required to publish its fare adjustments via a newspaper notice, and the CAB said further changes would have to be approved anew by regulators.
Singapore Airlines currently offers round trip Manila-Singapore tickets for as low as $270. CAB data show that the airline carried 339,116 passengers on international flights to the Philippines during the first half of the year, down 8% in the comparable 2010 period.
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Source: Business World, November 1, 2011
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