The emergence of Clark Freeport Zone as a vital Luzon economic hub was amplified by the opening in the mid 1990s of Clark International Airport, situated within the approximately 2,367-hectare Clark Civil Aviation Complex.
Today, the airport continues to be one of the area’s — and even the country’s — important engines of growth, and the government and the private sector are working together to turn it into a genuinely world-class gateway.
Both the airport and complex are managed by Clark International Airport Corp., a subsidiary of Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), a government-controlled corporation that undertakes the transformation of former military bases and properties into premier centers of economic growth with the help of the private sector.
Formerly known as Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, in honor of the late ninth president of the Philippines, Clark International Airport serves both domestic and international flights. It has also become a viable alternative to Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) because of its proximity to the National Capital Region, particularly its northernmost cities.
Over many years of development and expansion, the airport has grown to become one of the biggest aviation complexes in Asia. It features two runways configured in parallel, and each can be extended up to four kilometers to accommodate wide-bodied aircrafts. One of the runways is 3,200 meters long and 61 meters wide, while the other has a length of 3,200 meters and a width of 45 meters. The former is equipped with navigation aids and lighting facilities. The latter, which doesn’t have those, is currently limited to Visual Flight Rules uses.
The airport has all the necessary aerospace equipment, including terminal radar approach control, meteorological devices, airfield ground lighting system, and crash, fire and rescue facilities. It also has modern amenities, complemented by airline support services, maintenance repair overhaul facility, plane fuel services and for-ground handling facility, and more.
The year 2017 was a record-breaking one for the airport. It registered more than 1.5 million passengers that year, the most it has ever served. The previous record, made in 2012, was 1.3 million. According to the data available on the airport’s Web site, more than a million of its passengers last year were international passengers, and the rest were domestic passengers.
Alexander S. Cauguiran, acting president and chief executive officer of Clark International Airport, told reporters late last year that the increase in passengers could be attributed to President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s policy of distributing economic development outside Metro Manila. He also acknowledged the role that the Department of Transportation (DoTr) Secretary Arthur P. Tugade played in achieving the feat.
“This achievement proves the high level of our public’s trust and confidence in President Duterte’s vision for a multiple gateway under the administration’s Build, Build, Build program,” he was quoted as saying in news reports.
“Secretary Tugade, although very silent, worked very hard to turn the President’s vision into reality. That is why from only seven domestic flights a week in the previous years, we now have 200 international and domestic flights from Clark. All these happened in the first year of the Duterte administration.”
Clark International Airport will soon be able to accommodate more passengers and help further decongest the strained NAIA. (In 2016, for instance, 39.5 million passengers passed through the terminals of NAIA, whose designed capacity is only 30.5 million.) Last December, DoTr and BCDA awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contract for a new terminal building to the consortium of Megawide Construction Corp. and the foreign airport operator GMR Infrastructure Ltd.
In a statement, the contract winners said: “Megawide-GMR is looking forward to commencing work on the Clark International Airport New Passenger Terminal Building (NPTB).” The government and the consortium broke ground also that December.
The proposed 101,977-square-meter terminal is expected to increase Clark International Airport’s capacity substantially from around four million passengers to 12 million passengers by 2020. “At the peak of construction, the project is expected to create 2,000 jobs mostly for local construction workers. It will also engage the services of a network of local construction suppliers, service providers, and related businesses. This will help maximize efficiencies while meeting the highest levels of quality workmanship,” Megawide-GMR said. — FATV
