Budget Terminal Planned for Clark Airport
The Philippine government is planning to construct a 45,000 square meter budget terminal at Clark International Airport in 2014.
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| Image Source: Wikimedia |
According to officials from the Department of Transportation and Communications, the planned budget terminal is projected to become the second largest airport in the country playing host exclusively to low-cost carriers.
"What will happen is that we'll build a new budget terminal in a new location in the Clark area so the low-cost carriers will go to that terminal," said Jaime Feliciano, DOTC Assistant Secretary. Meanwhile, work continues on the existing Clark International Airport terminal which is being expanded to accommodate legacy carriers including Emirates and Qatar that recently began direct flights to the Middle East.
Earlier plans laid out for Clark did not include a budget terminal. "The plans before did not include a budget terminal when in fact, a big amount of the country's air travellers are budget passengers," said Feliciano. Statistics reported by the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation indicate that nearly eighty percent of the country's 15.5 million domestic air passengers are flown by budget airlines.
It is expected that the budget terminal would be completed in approximately two years. The cost of the terminal is estimated at P7.2 billion. The government has partnered with French firm, Aéroports de Paris, to conduct a feasibility study on the proposed budget terminal.
"We are signing the memorandum of agreement with Aéroports de Paris for the study and design of the proposed budget terminal," said Victor Luciano, CEO of Clark International Airport. The Aquino administration is planning to develop Clark Airport in an effort to decongest the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
The budget terminal is expected to boast an annual capacity between ten to fifteen million passengers. Luciano added that the study should be completed within three months. "If we can construct it in the second quarter of 2014, we'll probably finish it in the second quarter of 2016," said Luciano. The project will be part of the government's Public-Private Partnership program.
We see plenty being done at every other airport in the country but NAIA. And though progress in other cities is good, it is a disgrace that nothing is being done to clean up the mess that is NAIA. Why???
ReplyDeleteI thought once the new terminal was built, it will dedicate for international traffic, and the existing terminal is for domestic flights. And I thought 2 additional terminals will be build, terminal 2 and 3, and one of them is X-shaped satellite concourse. And additional runway will be build with the total of 3 parallel runways.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to that previous plan. New terminal which is much bigger than existing terminal, is for budget airlines? And the major flag carriers of Philippines and the entire country will compress to existing terminal which is smaller than NAIA terminal 1. I don't think this "new" master plan will replace NAIA. AND DO NOT AIM TO BRING INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES THAT CANCELS MANILA such as Aeroflot, Air France, Our Airline (formerly known as "Air Nauru"), Alitalia, British Airways, Czech Airways, EgyptAir, Garuda Indonesia, Lion Air (Indonesia), Pakistan International Airlines, Royal Jordanian, SAS, Swiss International Airlines, United Airlines (Tokyo Narita - Manila, now being served from Guam, Koror, and Chuuk), Vietnam Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Lufthansa, and others BACK TO PHILIPPINES.