It is high time the government focus on the development of Clark International Airport in view of the recent runway incident at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) which affected local and international flights.
The incident served as an eye opener. The government, airlines operators and aviation stakeholders should get their acts together to prevent such incidents.
A Chinese carrier Xiamen Airlines skidded off the runway recently triggering chaos and miseries to more than 4,000 passengers.
It would have been better if Clark airport will become the international gateway because of its two parallel runways which is more convenient to airlines for landing and take off.
The government should fasttrack the development of another Passenger Terminal capable of accommodating a huge volume of passengers especially during diversion of flights to Clark airport.
Clark airport is way much better than NAIA in terms of runway capabilities as well as vast space for more development of runways and Passenger Terminal Building.
Clark airport is currently serving more than 450 flights weekly and close to 8,000 passengers on a daily basis.
Philippine Airlines and Philippines Air Asia are set to add more new routes out of Clark airport this coming October further increasing passenger volume by 2.5 million by year end.
We don’t have much time and government should put their acts together to prevent a similar runway incident, and Clark airport is the answer.
Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel also reiterated his call to the Duterte Administration to go “full blast” in the development of Clark airport and other airports in the country.
Pimentel also said that NAIA can serve South Metro Manila and Southern Luzon to Bicol, and Clark can address the needs of passengers from North of Metro Manila and Northern Philippines.
Both hubs may share handling of logistics flow to Visayas and Mindanao, he added.