A lawmaker from Camarines Sur yesterday appealed to President Marcos Jr. and newly appointed Transport Secretary Vivencio Dizon to defer the plan to transfer all commercial turboprop aircraft operations from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to the Clark International Airport (CIA) until such time that the government can undertake the long-planned expansion of runways to accommodate bigger planes.
Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said the removal of propeller-driven small planes will severely hurt domestic tourism and inconvenience air travelers and tourists going to and from affected regions.
He pointed out that turboprop aircraft bombardiers and ATRs are the only ones used by leading airlines Cebu Pacific Air (CebuPac) and Philippine Airlines (PAL) for commercial flights in secondary airports like the one in Naga City.
“We are making this appeal to President Marcos and Secretary Vince (Vivencio Dizon) of the DOTR (Department of Transportation) to hold in abeyance this move by the MSCC to decongest the NAIA by gradually moving out all commercial turboprop operations from the country’s premier gateway to the Clark Airport in Pampanga,” Villafuerte said.
The MIAA is the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) while the MSCC refers to the Manila Slot Coordination Committee (MSCC), which comprises the Transportation Undersecretary for Aviation and Airports; the heads of the MIAA, Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP); and the general manager of the New NAIA Infra Corp. (NNIC), the consortium led by San Miguel Holdings Corp. (SMHC) which took over control of the NAIA following its privatization in September 2024.
“It is our hope that this MSCC decision on the gradual transfer of all turboprop operations from the NAIA to the CIA in Pampanga will be put on the back burner until such time that the DOTR can carry out the long-planned expansion of the runways at the Naga airport and other secondary airfields nationwide so they can accommodate bigger aircraft like the Airbus 300 jets in place of the would-be banned turboprops,” Villafuerte said.
UPGRADE RUNWAYS
The administration lawmaker said the airport upgrades must happen as soon as possible so that secondary airfields can have room for bigger aircraft or jets, citing the case of the Naga Airport, where the transfer plan would mean that travelers and tourists will first have to go to Clark, which is 80 kilometers north of Manila, to board the commercial turboprop flight to Naga City.
He said the only option is travelling by land for the 380-km trip from Manila to Bicol and “that will take more than 10 hours.”
Villafuerte expressed the hope that Dizon would put on hold the MSCC decision pending a review of the phaseout of turboprop operations at the NAIA and pending the start and swift completion of the long-approved expansion of the Naga Airport runway “so it can accommodate jets or airplanes bigger than those with propellers and gas-powered engines.”
“The options for travelers or tourists under the MSCC turboprop phaseout plan—traveling by plane via Clark to Naga with a land trip from Manila to Pampanga or taking a single but long commute by land from Manila to Naga—may seem like a choice between a rock and a hard place, and would naturally hurt tourism in the region, especially in our province of CamSur that is the leading tourist destination and tourism revenue earner in Bicol,” Villafuerte said.
Villafuerte said tourists may also just opt to go to Legazpi City instead or to other places outside the national capital that have flights taking off from NAIA which, he said, “will severely hurt the tourism industry not only in CamSur but for the entire Bicol as well, considering that our province is the biggest tourism revenue earner in the region.”
