Airline News
Indonesia, Philippines plan airport expansion
October 16th 2015
The Philippine government is considering bringing in new investors to expand and modernize Manila's 33-year-old Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). Read More » Under the latest proposal, firms will be brought in on 15- to 20-year concessions to invest more than 120 billion pesos ($2.6 billion) to upgrade NAIA, Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya told Bloomberg in an interview Wednesday, enabling the airport to meet projected traffic of 51.4 million passengers by 2037, up from about 35 million now. Abaya said President Aquino may soon grant approval to spruce up the facility, named after his father, who was assassinated on the airport's tarmac in 1983.
"We're almost at full capacity in NAIA," Abaya said. "The president is in agreement on how important this project would be, given the growing economy. We'll leave it to the concessionaire to provide solutions, whether through technology, added equipment, rapid exit taxiways or an additional terminal." The investors may be able to start operations by 2017, he added.
NAIA’s call for investors comes at a curious time, given the Supreme Court of the Philippines in September ruled in favour of the Philippines International Air Terminals Co. (PIATCO) and its joint venture partner, Fraport AG, in a decade long dispute with the Philippines government about the ownership of Terminal 3 at NAIA. The judges directed the Philippines government to pay PIATCO and its partner $510 million, which included $59 million the government paid to the company in 2006.
Meanwhile, the Philippines is also building a new passenger terminal at Clark International Airport, about 95kms north of Manila, to boost capacity fourfold to 8 million a year.
Across the Celebes Sea in Indonesia, the archipelago’s largest airport operator, Angkasa Pura II (AP II), has committed to invest IDR2 trillion ($150 million) for the construction of a new third runway at Jakarta’s infamously-congested Soekarno-Hatta. AP II has filed a land acquisition citation into the state budget and says it plans to start construction on the new 11,800 feet runway later this year. Upon completion, scheduled for end-2017, the runway will be able to accommodate widebodies including the A380, and expand the airport’s aircraft movements from the current 72 to some 100 movements per hour. AP II says it is planning a fourth runway slated for opening in 2024.
Originally designed to handle 22 million passengers a year, Soekarno-Hatta currently handles more than 60 million passengers. Nearby Halim Perdanakusuma Airport has been re-opened to take up some of the overflow from carriers including Garuda Indonesia budet subsidiary Citilink.
