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Friday, March 29, 2024

Needed yesterday: A new Manila airport

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The best argument that the Ninoy Aquino International Airport should be shut down in the near future and that Manila needs an entirely new international airport now is the Xiamen Airlines Flight MF866 disaster near midnight of Aug. 16, 2018 when the aircraft’s apparently inexperienced pilot overshot the Naia runway amid the heavy thunderstorm. 

The crash landing of the 43-ton Boeing 27 jetliner with 165 passengers (none of whom was harmed) triggered the cancellation of 200 flights and affected more than 35,000 tourist arrivals and easily twice the number of domestic passengers.  For three days, there was total chaos at Naia. The chaos spilled over alternate airports Clark and Cebu.

If you ask me, the pilots of that flight should have been arrested for economic sabotage, not to mention for the possible act of terrorism.  Amid the crash landing, there were wholesale violations of the Air Passenger Bill of Rights by nearly every airline that uses Naia.

I estimate the loss to the economy in two days of Naia’s paralysis at P3.7 billion.   Aviation contributes 8.7 percent to GDP or the annual output of goods and services. GDP is about P17 trillion.  Naia receives 66 percent of the country’s annual tourist arrivals of 6.5 million.

From Aug. 17 to 20, Philippine Airlines alone reported 34,000 passengers affected—29,500 passengers of 87 canceled flights and 4,500 passengers of 21 diverted flights.

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Next Wednesday, Aug. 29, the Senate will investigate the Xiamen Airlines incident which has made Naia more now notoriously globally for its lack of competent and visionary management.

Senate Public Services Committee Chair Senator Grace Poe has denounced “something perverse about an absent administration by inefficiency, lack of compassion for citizens and people, and anathema to the country’s quest in good public services, tourism, investments, human resources, and similar sectors.”

“The incident is truly a jolting wake-up call and we cannot afford to be the epitome of the worst airport in the world again,” Poe winced.

The government has received at least four airport proposals. 

The so-called Naia Consortium seeks to rehabilitate or expand Naia so it can service 47-million arrivals by 2020, from the present capacity of 31-million passengers per annum. The 2020 plan seeks terminal improvements, space rationalization and optimization of operations.  It does not seek to build a new runway.  Naia’s main problem is that it has only one international runway. There is a second runway but it is perpendicular, not parallel, to the main runway, virtually making Naia a single runway airport.

With Changi Airports as a partner, the so-called “super consortium” includes the Aboitiz Group, the Ayala Group, Andrew Tan, Lucio Tan, John Gokongwei Jr., the group of the late Andrew Gotianun, and Manuel V. Pangilinan of PLDT and First Pacific.   They promise to spend P102 billion for the Naia rehab.  The government seems to take them seriously because the group has been given a first proponent status.

Meanwhile, the Indian-Filipino group GMR-Megawide, already the operator of Cebu’s airport in the central Philippines, wants to rejig Naia by improving efficiency (but not build another runway) so that it could handle more aircraft movements (taking off and landing) from 45 to 60 per hour (or one flight per minute). They promise to invest P156 billion. 

Formidable is the partnership of Henry Sy Sr. and Wilson Tieng. It wants to build a new airport out of Sangley Point, the navy base, at a cost of $12 billion for the new airport to handle 120 million PPA on the reclaimed area of 2,500 hectares. 

The best proposal to me is the San Miguel Airport in Bulakan town, Bulacan on 2,500 hectares of flatlands. 

San Miguel Corp. president Ramon S. Ang wants to approach the crippling congestion and traffic at Naia the way Adam and Eve should have solved the apple problem. Rather than digesting it, sell it. 

Today, Naia is in the wrong place at the wrong time. “It has no room for expansion,” say aviation experts. 

Crucially, Naia has safety concerns. North, south, east and west, pilots landing and taking off at Naia have to grapple with potentially fatal aerial hazards, namely tall buildings within 4.2 kms of their gaze. 

Naia has become the most religious airport in Asia. You pray that your flight arrives or takes off on time and without delay (15 mins is allowable). Average delay at Naia is 43 minutes, both on the ground and in the air.   And you pray that nothing untoward happens to you and your flight, like the Xiamen Airlines incident. 

RSA wants to move the country’s gateway 27 kms to the north, in Bulacan where on 2,500 has. of land he commits to develop Asia’s most modern airport, with four runways initially, with the first two runways operational in six years, and passenger capacity of 100 million and double after that after 2023.  Ang has also made provisions for even six runways, if needed.

San Miguel analysts believe the new Bulacan airport will create 40-million jobs, attract 20-million tourists a year, and contribute up to P1.53 trillion to the economy yearly.

Total cost of the “aerotropolis”: P735 billion to be raised and spent in tranches of P150 billion per year, so SMC’s debt ratios won’t be affected at all. San Miguel can borrow six times its earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation. 

SMC has borrowed only twice its EBITDA. No funding will come from the government. The airport will come complete with a seaport, a sprawling industrial estate (where electricity will be the cheapest in the land), a government center, a business center and will be linked to Manila by five major expressways.

The San Miguel Airport has already received no less than five regulatory government approvals.    All that is needed is a final go-signal to proceed.

Meantime, let’s pray the curse of 866 will not visit Naia again.

biznewsasia@gmail.com

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