NNIC took over NAIA Sept. 14 as private operator. For 15 years NNIC must upgrade facilities and revenues. Government is to get 82 percent or P36 billion a year. Meaning, NNIC must gross P50 billion. MIAA is to remain as regulator. But per contract, NNIC will have the last say in improvements.
NAIA was hot news twice recently. First was when it raised parking fees to P50 for the first two, plus P25 per succeeding hour. Newsfeeds claimed it was unfair to employees, majority of whom don’t drive cars but take shuttles to and from work.
It turned out that the anonymous grumblers were those who took advantage of NAIA’s cheap overnight parking. Like, residents and habitus of nearby condos and casinos. Also “contractors” of airport taxis and limos that should have their own garages.
Real passengers, mostly frequent flyers, accepted the higher rates. Three hours is only $1.40, much less than $5 in Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Paris, Dubai. By freeing up 1,800 three-hour parking slots, Terminal 3 alone now has 14,400 usable spaces per day.
Second was when NNIC cancelled all special entry passes. All passengers henceforth are to be treated as VIPs. Only VVIPs may secure passes, at higher rates.
Behind the scenes are huge improvements and investments that passengers don’t know of. “But they’ll feel those in terms of comfort and convenience,” Ang beamed:
• Wider roads and more exits to Terminals 1, 2 and 3; directional signs; flood clearing around NAIA complex. Ang had cleaned up Pasig, Tullahan and Tatalon Rivers on his own for P3 billion in three years, making most of Metro Manila flood free. What more the narrower estuaries near NAIA.
• Meralco will set up a power substation exclusively for NAIA. (Adjacent establishments had connected to the old one.) The high-voltage facility can fluctuate only ten times a year at most, no longer thrice daily. Five giant uninterruptible power supplies, each the size of a ten-foot cargo container, will be on standby. Generators will kick in to recharge them. Objective: airport, airline and ancillary services will go on even during city blackouts.
• Lightning dissipators will replace arresters in the open space. A virtual invisible shield above NAIA will prevent frequent, hours-long cessation of tarmac and runway works during thunderstorms. No more deaths from lightning strikes.
• Three taxiways will be paved for swifter runway clearing. Takeoffs and landings will be increased 25 percent, from 38 to 48 per hour. An additional concourse for Terminal 2 will rise from the demolished Philippine Village Hotel.
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Airlines will be reassigned: all PAL international and domestic flights, mostly connected, at T1; Cebu Pacific domestic, 52 percent of traffic, to T2; all other international, to T3. T4 will be refurbished for all other domestic runs.• Within a year an exclusive terminal will be erected for general aviation, with CIQ booths. Perhaps they’ll no longer have to pay $450 to Customs, $300 to Immigration and $300 to Quarantine – P57,750 – per executive jet.
• Better air conditioning, new baggage conveyor belts, more toilets and airbridges. Less souvenir shops and restaurants, with leases same as in shopping malls, so food must cost the same.
Privileged monopolies expectedly will resist changes. One is a cargo handler nearest the terminal ramp. In 2020 a court ordered the closure of a NAIA gate through which competitors pass to get there. This year, on petition of a supposed passenger rights group, another court ordered closure of a second gate.
In both cases the petitioners claimed to own the land where the gates stand. Yet MIAA holds all the titles. Apparently, the monopoly was behind them.
It is to government’s interest that more cargo firms operate at NAIA.
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2024/10/18/2393338/ang-stakes-name-correcting-naia
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