The Naia Consortium, a group composed of seven of the country’s largest conglomerates that proposed to fix the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), is now seeking original-proponent status from the government, as it faces competition from another group.
Jose Manuel Reverente, the group’s spokesman, said there may be other proposals, but these mostly aim to transfer the country’s premier airport to other sites.
Securing the original-proponent status will give the consortium the advantage of having its proposal reviewed first by concerned government agencies.
A group led by construction firm Megawide Construction Corp. and its Indian partner GMR Infrastructure Ltd. also filed its unsolicited proposal to fix the Naia, which handles passengers far more than its capacity.
The Naia Consortium, however, announced its plans last year and filed its proposal late last month.
“I think this is the best solution now…for the Naia problem for the short and medium term and even for the long term,” Reverente said.
“The Naia will become a constraint to our economic growth and it already is [becoming an economic constraint]. It will be the single infrastructure project that will lift the tide of the economy,” he said.
The Naia Consortium offered to spend some P350 billion in 35 years to rehabilitate, modernize and maintain the Naia, which is still the country’s main gateway. The amount, however, included the P250-billion proposal to build a third runway that will be constructed on a reclaimed land. It will be operated as an independent airport.
Naia Consortium’s proposal involves expanding and interconnecting the existing terminals of the Naia, upgrading airside facilities and the development of commercial facilities.
All existing terminals will be expanded and rehabilitated, and will be connected to each other using what they call a people mover, or an elevated railway system that transports passengers from one terminal to another.
Divided into two phases, the group’s proposal aims to increase the capacity of the Naia to about 100 million passengers per year.
Actual work will take 24 more months for the first wave of immediate expansion. Further expansions are planned to meet projected passenger demand moving forward. In 2017 the four Naia terminals, designed to handle only 31 million passengers, accommodated 42 million people.
The Megawide-GMR provides a project cost of $3 billion (P150 billion at 50:$1 exchange rate) since it does not include the construction of a third runway on a reclaimed land. It also has a shorter concession period of 12 years.
Quoting a study conducted some four years ago, the Naia Consortium said it needed to start the construction to rehabilitate and expand the existing terminals this year, or the airport will become a constraint to the economy.
The initial phases of the rehabilitation will be completed between 2020 and 2022, while the third runway with another terminal can be done in seven to nine years, which included time for the reclamation of the site.
It will be up for government approval if it wants to pursue such third runway.
The seven members of the Naia Consortium are Aboitiz InfraCapital Inc., Ayala’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., Andrew Tan’s Alliance Global Group Inc., Lucio Tan’s Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp., Filinvest Development Corp., JG Summit Holdings Inc. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes