GOVERNMENT officials announced on Wednesday, March 27, that the modern passenger terminal being constructed at the Clark International Airport will open by mid-2020.
The new airport terminal is expected to accommodate eight million passengers per year, bringing the airport’s total capacity to over 12 million from the current 4.2 million.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III earlier said the new airport terminal is the fastest infrastructure project to be implemented by the national government and will set the template for all other projects under the Build Build Build program.
The new terminal is the first hybrid PPP project implemented under the Duterte administration.
As of March 28, construction was 53 percent complete.
“We are looking forward to this project’s completion ahead of schedule,” Dominguez said.
“The expansion of the airport has been on the government’s drawing board for 20 years. Under the Duterte administration, the means and methods were found to finally make things happen,” he added.
Full airport development, which will be undertaken in four phases, is designed to accommodate over 80 million passengers annually, putting Clark International Airport at par with the biggest airports not only in the region but in the world.
The development of the airport is guided by the master plan and feasibility study of Aeroport de Paris Ingenierie (ADPI) completed in 2013 and pursued through a grant by the French government.
Citing the plan by ADPI, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade announced that now is the time to “retract and retrace the plans” for a second runway.
“We would like to announce that government will begin planning and will construct the second runway in accordance with the ADPI plan. We are eyeing completion of this runway before the end of the term of the President,” he assured.
Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC) president Jaime Alberto Melo, for his part, cited the impact of building another runway.
“The second runway doubles the capacity of the airport. It can cater to three more terminals such as this (referring to the new passenger terminal),” he said.
“The growth of the Clark International Airport in the last two and a half years has been way above projection,” Melo added.
Joshua Bingcang, BCDA senior vice president for business development and operations, noted that the number of domestic passengers is projected to increase by 4,812 percent to 2.5 million by yearend from only 51,625 passengers in 2016. International passengers are seen to reach over 1.5 million by 2019, a 72-percent increase from 899,000 passengers in 2016.
Domestic flights have increased exponentially by 8,866 percent to 538 in 2019 from only six flights in 2016 while international flights are expected to double by 2019 from 120 in 2016.