SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—Good things sometimes come in unexpected ways. Take the case of the Subic Bay International Airport (SBIA).
At a time when international air passenger traffic is down by 60 percent and airport revenues by 66 percent because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Subic air terminal is defying the odds and taking in more international flights.
The reason for this surprising bonanza? The frequent arrival here of Philippine Airlines (PAL) flights to bring home overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) stranded abroad because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This was the result of a policy by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) to impose a limit for all international airports in the country to accommodate just 1,500 passengers per day to avoid crowding during the pandemic.
And accordingly, PAL distributed its flights to various airports to accommodate the market. The Subic airport, which had known far more flying school training flights than the international kind in the past several years, then became an alternate point of entry for returning workers.
More movement
ON a recent Tuesday, the latest PAL flight to Subic arrived with 299 overseas workers from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
This was the 27th of such Philippine Airlines arrivals since July this year, when Subic became an alternate port for OFW repatriation. This total did not include nine other flights that were diverted to the nearby Clark Airport during bad weather.
SBMA airport manager Zharrex Santos said that under the government’s OFW Repatriation Program, the SBIA had handled a total of 9,159 international passengers consisting of 8,455 land-based and 421 sea-based OFWs, as well as 274 Filipino and nine foreign non-OFW passengers.
Of these, more than 8,400 passengers brought in by PAL also stayed in Subic hotels for their mandatory quarantine of from seven to 10 days, thus providing another extra revenue stream for the Subic Bay Freeport.
According to the SBMA Tourism Department, a total of 23 hotels and accommodation facilities with combined capacity of close to a thousand rooms have signed up for the quarantine hotel program. Nineteen of these are in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone and four are in Olongapo City.
Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma said the use of Subic as an alternate port of entry for the government’s OFW Repatriation Program has given the Subic airport a new lease on life as a global gateway.
“Subic had seen a resurgence of international aircraft and passenger movements, as well as improved income for the airport since then,” Eisma said on Tuesday.
“In the third quarter of 2021 alone, the OFW flights had provided the Subic airport P1.6 million in direct income, as well as P218.7 million in income for Subic hotels. But aside from the impact on revenue, we’re proving here that Subic can be a global gateway and that’s what’s more important from a strategic point of view,” Eisma added.
More revenue
ACCORDING to a report from the SBMA Port Operations Group, aircraft movement at the Subic airport in the third quarter of 2021 increased to 17,756, or by as much as 25 percent compared to the 14,220 recorded in the third quarter of last year.
While most of the movement involved domestic aircraft, a total of 55 international flights landed in the months of July, August and September, the report pointed out. These flights resulted in an increase of international passengers recorded in Subic—from just 137 in the second quarter of 2021 to a thousand-fold figure of 5,800 in the third quarter.
“The increase in international passenger movement by 4,134 percent was attributed to the repatriation of overseas Filipino workers and retuning overseas Filipinos (ROFs),” said Ronnie Yambao, SBMA senior deputy administrator for the SBMA Operations Group.
Yambao added that in the same period, the Subic airport posted an actual revenue of P62.15 million, thus surpassing its revenue target of P49.52 million by 126 percent. The third-quarter income was also 32 percent higher than that recorded in the same period last year, he said.
Per SBMA records, the Subic Bay International Airport raked in P40.48 million from leases, P21.62 million from airport fees, and P48,672 from royalty income in the third quarter.
The same report indicated that the SBIA charges P47,267 for landing and take-off fee per flight. Other fees paid to the airport coffers included those for parking, passes and stickers, vehicle escort, and rooms.
Strategic direction
THE OFW flights to Subic also provide a way to test the capacity of the Subic Bay International Airport, which is being upgraded to serve as a global gateway in the future, Chairman Eisma pointed out.
“We are continuing with the airport rehabilitation program that we started three years ago, and the successful OFW flights now are an indication that we have made substantial progress in upgrading SBIA facilities and equipment,” she said.
Among the completed upgrades made for the Subic terminal that were necessary for an international airport are a new Doppler very high frequency omnidirectional range distance measuring equipment (DVOR/DME), an automated weather observation system (AWOS), an area navigation approach (RNAV), and new air-ground communication system for air traffic control.
Prior to the OFW flights, the SBIA also served as a Crew-Change One-Stop-Shop hub since September last year under another government program to bring home stranded Filipino seafarers and facilitate their return to work after some vacation in the country.
Eisma said this was also an unexpected development that helped the SBMA assess the need for better facilities and upgraded equipment that would make the Subic airport a more competitive global gateway in the future.