The Department of Transportation (DOTr) has completed the terms of reference for the privatization of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) which aims to increase the aircraft movement per hour by 25 percent.
“We will work (to) fast-track the privatization of NAIA. Being the only major airport in Metro Manila (it) has breached its rated capacity; it’s high time to modernize and expand the NAIA, because MIA remains the primary gateway to the Philippines,” DOTr Secretary Jaime Bautista told the Senate Committee on Public Services chaired by Senator Grace Poe last Thursday.Bautista said NAIA can only handle 40 to 44 movements of aircraft an hour and once privatized can handle up to 55 aircraft movements.
Bautista said with the amendment to the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme, any dispute or issue between the government and private sector will go through arbitration.
“(The) amendment to the IRR of the PPP Law, which will address the issue that I have just mentioned… will allow arbitration, in case there’s a dispute between the Philippine government and the private sector,” Bautista said, adding that such provisions are adopted internationally.
The previous administration received proposals from the NAIA Consortium composed of seven conglomerates and Megawide-GMR, as well as San Miguel Corp. and Philippine Airport Ground Support Solutions Inc. but eventually terminated the privatization plan in March 2021.
Businessman Joey Concepcion said any improvement in NAIA will redound to so many benefits in the tourism sector.
Concepcion said the lockdown created financial problems for micro, small and medium enterprises in the tourism industry, and that efforts must now be focused on helping the sector.
He said the biggest assistance for the sector can come from making it easy for people who fly in and out of the NAIA.
“The airport experience must be improved, not just for the tourists but also for the overseas Filipino workers.
Concepcion revived the 2018 proposal forming a consortium to modernize the NAIA following the New Year’s Day glitch that paralyzed operations over Philippine airspace.
Concepcion organized the NAIA consortium. “Having seen how badly key systems in our air transportation system need to be modernized, and how severely any glitch can affect the whole country, I hope that this time, we can revive this proposal and see it through,” he said.
In a related development, Bautista vowed to settle the dispute involving the service contract agreement between the DOTr and Sumitomo Corp. – Thales Corp. over the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines’ installation of the Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM).
Bautista said the DOTr has been in discussions with the two corporations since September 2022, while giving assurance the transport agency is expediting the resolution of the payment dispute.
“It is important that we complete the maintenance agreement and upgrade the system. We have included this (resolution) in our list of priority projects to the President,” he said.
Once the dispute is resolved, Bautista said a feasibility study for the procurement of the CNS/ATM’s backup and system upgrade to prevent the recurrence of the New Year’s Day incident.
“We agree that we will have a budget to do the feasibility study for this project and we will work with Thales, as far as the upgrade of the software is concerned,” Bautista said. Irma Isip
