San Miguel-led NAIA winning bidder to build new passenger terminal —Ramon Ang

The San Miguel Corp.-led private sector group that bagged the operations and maintenance contract for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) is planning to build a new passenger terminal aimed at decongesting the airport’s existing terminals.

“We will build a new passenger terminal building with a capacity of 35 million passengers per year,” SMC president and CEO Ramon Ang said at a press conference in Manila on Monday, following the signing of the concession agreement for the NAIA Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Project.

Ang said the new structure will also have a carpark with a capacity of 9,000 vehicles.

The San Miguel chief said all the offices in the existing terminals of NAIA will be relocated to the new passenger terminal building.

With this, Ang said the existing NAIA terminals will have “30% more space,” effectively decongesting Terminals 1, 2, and 3 of the airport.

“Luluwag na ang mga lumang terminal na ‘yan pagka nayari na ang bagong terminal (The old terminals will be decongested once the new terminal is built),” he said.

“It can handle 35 million passengers per year with a concourse… with 50, target-to-build, boarding bridges,” he added.

SMC-SAP & Co. Consortium, renamed as New NAIA Infra Corporation, bagged the 15-year concession deal to operate, maintain, and rehabilitate NAIA, with an option for a 10-year extension depending on the performance of the concessionaire. 

The group is made up of San Miguel Holdings Corp., RMM Asian Logistics Inc., RLW Aviation Development Inc., and Incheon International Airport Corp. It won the bidding after it offered the highest percentage share of its future gross revenues to the government at 82.16%.

Following the signing, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said the winning group will undergo a financial closing that would take at least six months. 

The government is aiming to hand over the operations and maintenance of NAIA to the San Miguel-led consortium in September.

Asked if the new terminal will be called Terminal 5, Ang said, “‘Di ko pa alam eksakto ano tawag don basta (I don't know what it will be called but it will be a) brand new passenger terminal building.”

The San Miguel chief said the consortium is targeting to award the contract to build the new terminal building to a contractor “within six months” after it secured the necessary approvals from the Department of Transportation and the Manila International Airport Authority.

Ang added that the construction of the new terminal building could take at least three years.

“The location of the new passenger terminal building is in the Philippines Village Hotel [compound],” he said,

The consortium would need to make an upfront payment of P30 billion to the government and another P2 billion in annual payments for the duration of the contract.

This is on top of the over 82% of its gross revenues it committed to remit to the government.

The group is committing at least P122.3 billion in capital investments for the entire 25-year concession period or about P4.89 billion per year.

The government is expecting to generate P900 billion in revenues from the NAIA PPP project, inclusive of the upfront payment, annual payments, and the committed government revenue share.

Improvements

Ang said the group is committing to ease the vehicular traffic going to NAIA by building a Skyway bypass from Magallanes going to the Terminal 3.

“No more vehicular traffic by March next year,” he said,

San Miguel’s top honcho also said the group will use technologies such as QR code scanning “so you’ll be able to get to the pre-boarding room quickly.”

“Improve air conditioning, elevators, walkalators, escalators will be fixed… Even the boarding bridges,” Ang said.

“We will maximize the usage of the runway from 40 takeoffs per hour to 48 takeoffs per hour,” he added.

Ang also said the group will address the problems in the airport’s power system by fixing its generators, capacitors, and wirings.

The DOTr earlier said passengers can expected greater availability of parking; shorter and more predictable waiting times from check-in to immigration to security; availability of seats in the pre-departure gate; baggage coming out of the belly of the plane up to the conveyor belt in a predictable amount of time; reliable operating elevators, escalators, passenger boarding bridges, reliable lighting” within the the first year of the consortium’s takeover of NAIA’s operations.

As to the funding, Ang said several banks have already committed financing to the NAIA PPP Project ensuring that the consortium has enough war chest to bankroll the rehabilitation, maintenance, and operation of the Manila airport. —KBK, GMA Integrated News