THE CLARK International Airport (International Code: CRK) will hit the 2.5 million mark in the number of passengers before the year ends, an executive of the government-run Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) said on Monday.
Jaime Melo, CIAC president and chief executive officer, said CRK’s projection is to register its 2.5 millionth passenger around the third week of December this year.
“CRK is now one of the country’s busiest airports and this 2.5-million passenger mark is another record-breaking milestone for Clark,” Melo added.
CIAC P/CEO Jaime Alberto C. Melo.
CRK recorded an all-time high of more than 1.5 Million passengers in 2017, translating to 4,500 domestic aircraft movement and 6,484 international aircraft movement.
“At present, CRK sustains 390 domestic and 184 international flights weekly. We are also targeting at least 11 domestic and 24 international destinations for next year,” Melo said.
CRK tallied a total of 242,840 passengers from May 1 to 31, 2018―the highest monthly total passengers recorded in the 23-year history of the airport.
On August 17, CRK handled the most number of travelers in a day with 11,472 passengers.
By end of year 2022, the target is to have 4,457,046 passengers flying from Clark annually.
“The increase in the number of passengers here at the Clark means we help ease congestion at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and in Metro Manila, and at the same time increase economic activities in the central and northern regions,” Melo said.
In 2015, before the Duterte administration took over, Clark tallied only seven domestic flights and 110 international flights per week with only 868,528 international and domestic passengers combined for the year.
After airlines were encouraged to mount more flights at Clark, CIAC exceeded targets by registering a total of 951,007 passengers by the end of 2016.