Gen. Alberto Yap (ret.), president of Clark International Airport Corp. (CIACor), said here last week that Airbus officials are seriously considering Clark Special Economic Zone as an alternative maintenance site outside of Singapore.
Yap said Airbus is building the world’s biggest commercial airline, A380, a double-decker jet plane which the company has scheduled to launch in 2006 through a commercial flight of Singapore Airlines.
Airbus officials are considering to set up shop at the Clark zone where they can do some repair and maintenance work aside from Singapore, Yap said.
According to Yap, Airbus and Boeing officials have been attracted to establish maintenance and logistics facility at the DMIA complex because of its strategic location and existing facilities like its two parallel 3.2-kilometer runways that can accommodate large aircraft and an existing passenger terminal building that can serve 500 passengers an hour or 1.5 million passengers a year.
CIACor officials have started upgrading the DMIA complex, including the putting up of another runway to accommodate more aircraft and expanding the hangar to attract aviation firms engaged in maintenance services.
Upgrading of the airport facilities is also designed to make them attractive to suit the requirements of Clark zone locators and investors.
An additional $70 million will be needed from multilateral lending institutional to fund the upgrading of DMIA, Yap said.
He said the government is considering private companies to undertake the improvement and upgrading of the DMIA complex under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme or build-operate-own (BOO) rather than raising funds for such purposes.
President Arroyo has considered DMIA as the government’s alternative site to support the requirements of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Metro Manila, said Dr. Emmanuel Y. Angeles, president and CEO of Clark Development Corp. (CDC).
Angeles said that United Parcel Service (UPS) has established at Clark Zone its Asia Pacific hub and Federal Express (Fedex) has reserved some 50 hectares in the zone where it plans to move its regional facility once its newly extended contract with Subic Bay Freeport expires in 2010.