With no end in sight for the congestion at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), lawmakers have given transport and airport authorities a January deadline for the submission of a master plan that will set in motion the use of Clark International Airport (CIA) as the substitute main gateway.
This was the result of the hearing conducted by the House Committee on Transportation on Wednesday attended by officials of the Department of Transportation and Communications, Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap), Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
Liberal Party Rep. Cesar Sarmiento of Catanduanes, chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, said discussions on the use of CIA as the alternative air hub have been going on for years already, but nothing concrete has come out to this day.
“If you could assemble and meet and present a master plan, we could have it submitted to the proper authorities for immediate action,” Sarmiento told the transport officials. “To speed up matters, this committee would like the groups to present an action master plan, considering Clark as an alternative airport to Naia to be submitted in January.”
Last December thousands of passengers were stranded at Naia due to canceled or delayed flights as a result of the congestion.
“We called this meeting in anticipation of December when we would celebrate the first anniversary [of the Cebu Pacific fiasco]. We welcome collecting the P52 million by way of fines. We don’t want that to happen again,” Sarmiento said.
Aside from CIA, there were also proposals to develop Sangley Point in Cavite as the alternative to Naia.
But Kambilan Rep. Joseller Guiao of Pam-panga said the CIA is the best substitute to Naia. He noted that the Clark Airport can accommodate as many as 4 million passengers per year.
“Clark has the capacity of accommodating 4 million passengers, but right now only 1 million pass through the airport. The airport has the capacity to hold several flights,” he said.
The lawmaker added that the airport can be reached with far less travel time—or one-and-a- half hours from Manila—than the two to three hours of travel to Naia due to heavy traffic along the roads to Naia.
He also called on the DPWH to build a direct access road to the CIA from the North Luzon Expressway (Nlex) to cut the travel time to the airport and promote it as one of the country’s premier gateways.
He earlier admitted that one problem often cited why travelers and potential clients do not consider Clark is its distance, which is exacerbated by the lack of direct access from the Nlex.
The lawmaker said one important support infrastructure that must be built is a direct access route to the airport from Nlex, bypassing the busy and narrow roads of Angeles City and Mabalacat City.
But CAB Chief Legal Officer Wyrlou Samodio admitted that more studies are needed before CIA can be used as an alternative to Naia.
“It’s a long process we have to undergo before everything becomes feasible. Logistics-wise, it’s not easy to transfer people from one place to another. I think we have to take a thorough study, or at least prepare Clark before we transfer flights from Clark to Manila,” he said.
Caap Director General William Hotchkiss said Naia can only accommodate 40 aircraft movements per hour. “We can only accommodate 40 flights that’s the safest we can assure. If that’s exceeded, the safety factor goes down.”
But Caap Supervising Air Traffic Control Officer Marlene Singson said there were days when the Naia exceeded the standard 40 movements per hour.