Government ditches plan to close NAIA

As the government moves forward with its plan to privatize the operations and maintenance of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said the country’s main gateway will still continue to exist even after the concession period with the winning private operator expires.

In December last year, the Transportation floated the possibility of closing NAIA when the planned airports in Bulacan and Cavite become operational as he revealed the government’s plan to privatize the Manila airport. 

However, following a pre-bid conference for the P170.6-billion NAIA Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project on Friday, Bautista said that “there’s no provision in the concession agreement that we will close the airport.”

“We still have the option to continue the operations of NAIA,” he said.

The Transportation chief said that based on the DOTr’s study investors will still be able to recover their investments and earn a reasonable rate of return under a “multi-airport strategy” for the Greater Capital Region (GCR).

Once completed, the proposed Sangley Point International Airport in Cavite and the New Manila International Airport in Bulacan will be serving passengers in the GCR area, particularly Metro Manila and its nearby provinces.

To recall, the provincial government of Cavite has awarded the $11-billion contract to redevelop Sangley Airport into an international gateway to a consortium composed of Cavitex Holdings Inc., the Yuchengco Group, Lucio Tan-led MacroAsia Corp., Samsung C&T Corp, Munich Airport International GmbH, and Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong Limited.

Meanwhile, San Miguel Corp. is building the P740-billion New Manila International Airport (NMIA) project in Bulacan.

Under the draft concession agreement, the winning bidder of the NAIA PPP project will operate the Manila airport for 15 years, with an option to extend it for another 10 years as long as the concessionaire complies with certain key performance indicators set by the government, such as the processing time for check in, immigration and security checks.

The P170.6-billion NAIA PPP Project will cover all facilities of the country's main gateway, including its runways, four terminals, and associated facilities.

The project is expected to improve overall passenger experience and increase the current annual passenger capacity of NAIA to at least 62 million from the current 32 million as well as increase air traffic movement from 40 to 48 per hour.

The goal of the project is to address longstanding issues at NAIA such as the inadequate capacity of passenger terminal buildings and restricted aircraft movement.—LDF, GMA Integrated News