Manila International Airport

[Arianespace]

Headlines yesterday

Contrary to information reaching us, there is NO RUNWAY CLOSURE at NAIA.  

Technically correct because planes are still able to depart. When your landing, that is a problem because you can't see the runway. That happens of course due to non-functional ILS. Visuals can only do so much. Really, Art Tugade has a point about COA. OEM suppliers has to have a different role in bids. Because right now the procurement is not moving. RA9184 has to be revised. Mind you, that is congress job not DOTr.  

[Arianespace]

Special powers for air traffic woes

“(The) solution (would be) special powers to authorize CAB to redistribute air traffic to Clark, Davao and other developmental international gateways,” the Transport department said.

Can't do. Restricted by bilaterals. As to local carriers, has to apply to all, otherwise void. Problem is Clark can't accommodate all local traffic in CRK. And no airline would be foolish to move operations there alone. Even the Tacloban planned experiment fails before it was hoped to be carried out.

The Philippines has been promoting use of the Clark International Airport but airlines prefer NAIA or nothing.

To promote the Clark International Airport, Transport Secretary Arthur Tugade said the government has plans of building a railway system to link either the NAIA in Pasay or Trinoma mall in Quezon City to the Clark airport.

He said a formal proposal would be submitted by the Department of Transportation as the plan needs to be reviewed by the National Economic and Development Authority.

That would be Northrail. If that fails there is always plan B.

The new proposal extends LRT all the way to CRK using the centreline of NLEX. As to its reality, only time will tell.

Apart from the railway system, the department also has plans of moving turboprop or small aircraft from the NAIA to Clark.

The Transport department is likewise planning to remove the general aviation operations or private jets from NAIA to either Sangley, Clark or Subic to decongest the airport once dubbed as the world’s worst.

Philippine Airlines chairman Lucio Tan and Cebu Pacific president and CEO Lance Gokongwei have both expressed support for the plan to move the general aviation operations out of the NAIA.

Tugade said the move is expected to give an additional 18 to 21 percent of aviation space to commercial flights in Manila’s airport.

http://www.philstar.com/business/2016/08/13/1612784/special-powers-air-traffic-woes

The only possible alternatives.

[Arianespace]

I did mentioned it in this forum before everyone saw it in the broadsheet. Here's Boos column talking about it.

Well, he should see this post why it took ages just to bid for a damaged parts and not blame the mess to Honrado. Because even if MIAA has the money, Honrado can't still buy it ASAP. WHY? RA9184. Thus, my earlier post. Boo is right though about privatization. Because the stupid law will no longer be applicable to procurement by private entity.

NAIA ILS
 Bobby Lim, Transport usec for aviation, is the rare public servant who responds to public concerns. He sent me an e-mail reacting to previous columns that reported on the non-working ILS or Instrument Landing System at NAIA. He confirmed that one of the NAIA ILS was indeed not working, but not just for months as I wrote, but for more than a year. Here is his e-mail to me:

“Boo Hi! I appreciate this opportunity to respond to your observations which we welcome so we can improve our performance and delivery of services.

“Regarding your first concern, the Instrument Landing System (ILS) for Runway 24 has not been operational because it was struck by lightning last July 22, 2015. The incident caused damage to some parts of the ILS’ localizer equipment.

“Unfortunately, spare parts needed in the ILS repair were not available when the incident occurred. Thus, CAAP immediately requested MIAA (since this instrument is owned by MIAA and operated and maintained only by CAAP) to purchase the needed spare parts for the repair of the ILS 24 for it to be operational. CAAP and MIAA are in constant coordination to finally address the repair of the ILS for Runway 24.

“I am advised that in the interim, the Very High Frequency Omni-directional Radio Range (VOR) is used in place of the ILS for runway 24. The minimum precision approach for aircrafts for VOR 24 is 870 feet. This ensures safer landing and approach for aircrafts using Runway 24.

As for the rest of the story, find it here.

And by the way, Bulacan airport is just a pipe dream. The only way for it to be operational is when you closed Clark. Imagine, statement coming from the CAAP head honcho at that? No, wonder he was kicked out for incompetent remarks with less than a year of service. His successor though was very impressive and got balls.

[Arianespace]

We were objecting to this because it doesn't solve the problem. But it seems interest of some is more important than alleviating passenger plight.

This is the reason why the thought of the new airport project doesn't fly at all at this time and even in the previous administration.

NEDA approves P74.6-B NAIA PPP

The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme for P74.56 billion Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) this week passed the muster of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board during its first meeting under the Duterte administration.

The private partner for the airport project, earmarked as the country’s main gateway, will improve and upgrade all existing NAIA terminals of the covering both landside and airside, except air traffic services, to meet International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.

Now that the NEDA Board has approved the PPP, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) will invite interested companies to bid in the project.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte convened the NEDA Board on September 14, 2016 to approve a number of infrastructure projects.

There is nothing in the news that will pique your interest. But concession period for this contract is set for 15-20 years, including the design/construction period. So expect you should still be using NAIA in the next 20 years before seeing the face of the new airport.

DOTr expects to sign concession agreement by September 2017. Told you, working in the government can sometimes be frustrating. The logical solution is to build a new airport but I guess geniuses in our  government has a much better idea.

 

[Solblanc]

This is quite disturbing... we would have thought that with a President that commutes between NAIA and Davao, there would be some directive to fast-track the new airport. A 20-year concession will literally bind the next few administrations from building a new airport as any premature termination of that concession will end up in the courts, or worse, international arbitration.

And if Sangley really is being groomed to be a spillover airport, then why not just go all the way?

If I were SMC, though, I'd do everything to bag that concession and get assured income from the NAIA Expressway.

Theoretically, if SMC did get that concession, they could totally build a new runway (align it as 6/24 R perhaps) and terminal in their PEA-AMARI properties, connect the airside to NAIA through an elevated road of sorts, and still call that area MNL. It's a haphazard way of expanding the airport, but it's a possibility.

Ang gulo.

[Arianespace]

Talks at DOTr suggest the new airport cannot be build in the next 10 years due to budgetary considerations. Then Tugade said other options are available at less price, Clark being the object. So he suggested to the President to extend instead the northrail to Clark because it terminates only in Malolos. And improve Clark which has been suffering a traffic decline. Clark is useless without the train. Our government is now talking to the Japanese for this extension. What is good about new northrail is it can accommodate both express and regular train services, including freight.  It sure does is cheaper than Sangley because infrastructure is already there. The question now is will the NLEX-SLEX connector hold volume for airport services? That should be a dilemma because its non-expandable.

[Solblanc]

How would the Japanese react to that, though, when JICA is advocating Sangley, and Japanese investments in PEZA and Calabarzon stand to benefit from that decision?

Under the previous admin, the political ties were so close that I half-expected jica to fund sangley outright with a manageable loan, like they did with T2. The current admin looks to have gotten on the right foot with Japan, that being said, the pro-Chinese rhetoric is bound to raise eyebrows.

[Tigz]

Its quite appalling that the long term( new airport) is shoved aside in favour of the more lucrative O&M concessions. No doubt, fix the terminals, plug in more retail and whalaah! The more pax sitting there and sleeping for the loong wait is good business! Even a simple "mami and siopao" stand will have its cash register ringing when a flight gets delayed 1 hour or so. Quick term investment for the long term profit!
In the interim, Clark will continue to be a scapegoat. Pardon my malicious mind but I can already imagine some well connected government execs running a cleaning sevice contract! Pretty sure many items will be bidded out!

[Solblanc]

The senate hearing earlier didn't help. They mentioned that the long-term plan is spillover to Clark.

Apparently, a 3rd NAIA runway is still on the table. With a short version and a long version.

Technically, if they were serious about emergency powers, they could just expropriate all of bicutan and build a big terminal and independent parallel runway there. Ridiculously expensive, but it would be faster than reclaiming land... or would it?

[Arianespace]

The Parallel runway is actually the trigger for a much longer contract. If its going to be build by the operator then we are talking about 30 years or more concession period. DOTr takes care of the ROW and cost of acquisition. While the ROW is easy, the cost is difficult. That has been the bone of contention. Its been in the drawing board a long time ago. In fact, the drawing board was shown already about the short (regional) variant years back. And the ROW is on the red line. Note too the C5 extension there. Forget the exit as the approach is still good.

[Tigz]

Aren't those subdivision houses to be expropriated if this 3rd runway pushes thru? Can't imagine the leagl process that goes with!

[Solblanc]

On a smaller scale, expropriation was going to happen anyway because of the C5 extension.

The groundwork was already prepared; affected homeowners were notified of the upcoming expropriation and were given computation for their compensation as well as a timeframe for them to vacate. But then they stopped the C5 extension in that area, and I'm not sure if they'll push through with it.

Anyway, expropriation can be done if the funds are available to do it. And in a way, it might even be faster than reclaiming land or building a railway.

[Arianespace]

The problem lies in the intent to build Terminal 5 that should displaced the entire Merville Subd. While C5 ext.
should be running underground parallel to the taxiway. Its becomes a complex process when you put the new terminal in the equation. Because after all these things are done, they will not solve the congestion the new runway is meant to address.

It was supposed to be a simple parallel runway to meet capacity shortfall in the medium term while a new airport is being build. Its a stop gap solution because it can add only .3-.5 to what the present runway handles. So if runway 06-24 handles maximum of 30 landings and takeoffs an hour, the new runway will just add 15 to that as compared to an independent parallel that will increase it to 60. And that can be made possible only with a new airport. Even Clark in its current configuration cannot do it independently because you need at least a kilometer separation to do just that.

[Richard]

15 flights per hour are 150 in ten hours x approx. 200 pax per flight = 30.000 more passengers per day x 365 days = 10,000,000 passengers per annum, roughly calculated, due to less pax per flight than full loads x 3 - 4 years until a new airport can be inaugurated = 30 - 40 million pax more than now. I did forget that construction time needs some 2 years ?

Nevertheless I believe it´s worth it.

[Arianespace]

Actually the 10m more passengers can still be squeeze in with the current facility merely by up-gauging aircraft and expanding T2 and T3. With the parallel you can max it at around 60million. That however assumes that the smallest aircraft in operation would be the size of A321.

[Richard]

Sounds good, so there is safeguard for further passenger development at NAIA for a couple of years, hopefully enough `till the new mega airport can be opened. Then though, these infrastructures have to be put into place now.

[maortega15]

Will there be any upcoming renovations for either of the terminals? I can't believe Terminal 3 really needs a complete renovation already!

[Tigz]

That's already part of the recently NEDA approved $76B PPP. T3 would most likely be at the tail end of work, an interior retrofit to boost retail and passenger comfort.

[Arianespace]

That is correct.

By the way, Digong is bringing Sangley to Japan. Lets see if he gets the funding deal.

[maortega15]

I'm reading that a MoU for the Philippine Global Gateway Project has been signed in China amounting to US$20B. What's the difference between that and the one in Japan? I would actually prefer the Japanese build the airport as they build nicer airports than the Chinese in my opinion. And they have expertise in building offshore airports.