Clark posts 6,000% hike in international flights

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Philippines — The Diosdado Macapagal International Airport here is facing 2010 with a record of 6,000-percent increase in its number of international flights since 2003, a period its officials have labeled as First Wind.

“In the Second Wind starting 2010, we expect DMIA to hit a million passengers per year or more than double the 600,000 passengers expected this year,” Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) executive vice president Alexander Cauguiran said. He said that CIAC’s operations of the DMIA from 2003 up to 2008 has been labeled as First Wind. He noted that in 2003, DMIA hosted only 44 international flights but that three years later, the airport had already recorded 7,880 international passengers.

“Next year, the operations will enter the Second Wind and we see a surge in the number of international airlines serving the DMIA,” he said. Cauguiran said that because of this, “there is an urgent need to expand DMIA’s Terminal 1 to increase its present capacity for only two million passengers to at least five million per year.”

Boarding bridges

He noted that CIA bid out over a week ago the bidding for the upgrading of the present terminal which is projected to cost some P300 million. “We now badly need to have at least two or three passenger boarding bridges to accommodate the long-haul carriers we expect at the DMIA soon,” he said. At present, passengers use stairs on the open tarmac to board or alight an aircraft. He noted that Araja Corp. won in the bidding after its only rival owned by the Ramos Group was disqualified allegedly on technical grounds. Cauguiran said, however, that the Ramos Group has a pending motion for reconsideration in its bid to open the bidding anew.

This, even as he belied allegations of Pampanga 1st district Rep. Carmelo Lazatin that the bidding was rigged in favor of Araja after CIAC allegedly acted in its behalf in negotiating beforehand with equipment suppliers from the United States to make sure the bidder would be able to comply with the project completion time frame. Lazatin said he would call for a congressional inquiry into the bidding.

But Cauguiran said “we categorically deny favoring any bidder”. He admitted that arising from plans to finish the project soonest, the CIAC had indeed conducted inquiries “to fast track procurement and delivery of necessary equipment, especially the passenger boarding bridges.”