The expansion of Clark International Airport (CRK) will pave the way for the Northern Luzon aviation hub to handle more cargoes, according to an official of Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC).
The airport authority is “really pushing for the full development of this airport in terms of passenger volume—so we could get the proper volume for these airlines to shift to the bigger type of aircraft in order to accommodate also belly cargo,” said Darwin Cunanan, CIAC assistant vice president for strategic development and corporate management, who spoke at the Northern Luzon Investors’ Conference recently organized by PortCalls and Asia Customs & Trade at the Makati Shangri-La.
Cunanan said CIAC has been approached by “a lot of companies who really want to utilize Clark Airport for their cargo requirements.” There are even companies that located to Clark Freeport Zone in the hope of shipping their cargoes via CRK.
Cunanan explained, however, that accommodating larger volumes of cargoes in CRK is still a “complicated” matter. Because CRK is still a growing airport, aircraft servicing the hub are mainly small and unable to handle bigger volumes. Cunanan said another issue concerns the need for more routes and destinations. Currently, air express operators UPS and FedEx have flights out of CRK.
Locators with bigger cargoes, Cunanan noted, are forced to ship through Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). The Clark Freeport Zone currently has 920 locators, accounting for exports amounting to up to U$S5.09 billion annually.
Aside from Clark Freeport locators, Cunanan said companies in nearby areas such as Subic and Bataan have expressed a similar airfreight demand, as they also have cargoes that need to be shipped via air.
Cunanan said CRK’s “main liability” is its small passenger terminal that can only accommodate 4.2 million passengers per annum.
He said, however, that they have a master plan to overcome this limitation.
The Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) is bidding out the first phase of a four-stage overall airport development program for CRK. The program aims to construct a new passenger terminal building to accommodate 8 million passengers annually, as well as build or install all the required associated facilities—both landside and airside—to support the operations of the new terminal. The first phase includes a new ramp and taxiway, a transport terminal hub, a secondary access road, and the conversion of the decommissioned runway to a taxiway.
The National Economic and Development Authority Board recently approved the proposal of BCDA to adopt the Build-Transfer (BT) scheme under the Amended Build-Operate-Transfer Law as the mode of construction for CRK’s expansion project.
The first phase has an estimated total cost of P15.35 billion, with P2.8 billion to be sourced from the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) budget for pre-construction activities, while the remaining investment requirement of P12.55 billion will be provided by the BCDA.
The plan also includes a second phase, which includes expanding the terminal building to accommodate up to 16 million passengers annually, constructing a new full-service carrier terminal (FSCT) with a six-million-passenger capacity every year, and implementing a two-runway system.
The third phase involves expanding the FSCT to accommodate 10 million passengers yearly, constructing a new low-cost carrier terminal (LCCT) with an annual capacity of 20 million passengers, and installing a two-runway system.
The last phase involves expanding the FSCT to a capacity of 16 million passengers annually, constructing a new LCCT with a 28-million-passenger annual capacity, and adopting a three-runway system.
Once the overall project is finished, CRK can accommodate 80 million passengers annually.
But even before the rollout of the airport expansion project, Cunanan said, CRK is already an International Civil Aviation Organization Category I-rated airport, which means it can handle widebody aircraft. It is also Category II ready, which means it can handle an Airbus 380, the largest commercial aircraft to date.
The Northern Luzon hub has also seen an increase in airlines and flights since December of last year.
The airport is now connected to eight domestic destinations from only one in December 2016, with 92 arrival and departure flights per week. Cunanan said this will continue to grow by the end of the year, with Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific, and Wakay Air starting new flights from October.
CRK also now has seven international destinations with 130 arrival and departure flights, but the figure will still grow by the end of the year with upcoming flights from China Eastern and Jetstar.
CIAC is likewise currently in discussion with AirAsia, Seair, PAL, and Eva Air for more flights and destinations.
These numbers are “still small compared to Manila (NAIA), but we are going big,” Cunanan noted. – Roumina Pablo
