Paul Phelan/CLARKAFB, PHILIPPINES

A former US Air Force base could be the answer to traffic saturation at Manila airport

Some airlines apologise in advance to their passengers for the bumpy rollout at Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). With insufficient space for a new runway, NAIA is near saturation at about 7.5 million passengers a year, and the existing main runway has to be patched continually.

Although a third passenger terminal is planned, many observers - including Rufo Colayco, president and chief executive of the Central Luzon region's Clark Development Corporation - believe it will never be built because of the runway capacity problem.

Manila's sea port is faring no better. Big container vessels can only enter shallow Manila Bay at high tide, but new, large and more efficient ships will not cope and Manila's costs for double-handling transhipment and the delays will soar. To ease the chronic traffic congestion, container truck operations are also limited to an inefficient 10h a day.

Many a metropolis confronting the challenges of launching a new international gateway would envy the Philippines, however. The former Clark US Air Force base, 85km (53 miles) north, is a ready-built airport that is barely used, but in excellent condition, and more than capable of meeting any foreseeable capacity need. The natural deep water port at the former US Navy base at Subic Bay, 45km to the west, provides a similar sea solution. Virtually all that is needed to bring a new transport infrastructure to full functionality is a high-speed railway, and upgraded road links between Clark, metropolitan Manila and Subic Bay.

In 1991, the eruption of nearby Mount Pinatubo hastened the US departure from both bases. Vulcanologists declare the volcano safe for at least 600 years and the nation has inherited two low-maintenance parallel concrete runways, each 3.2km long and fully capable of handling simultaneous arrivals and departures. There is space for a third runway, a complete airport and airways infrastructure, limitless ramp space and hangar capacity for major overhauls, maintenance facilities and cargo interchanges. Surrounding under-used agricultural land offers freedom from airport noise complaints and a sturdy residential infrastructure that was once home to over 30,000 USAF personnel and their families. The primary runway was designed as a landing alternative for the Space Shuttle, which explains its 90m (295ft) width, while the secondary is 60m wide.

future international gateway

This gives the government a ready-made second airport solution that bypasses the mountainous long-term debt and low-yield initial returns from overflow cargo and charter operations, usually experienced by authorities launching second airports. Hospital and emergency services, accommodation and transportation had been hurdles to development, but the airport's reactivated base hospital, ambulance and rescue/firefighting are in place. Ex-USAF facilities are being converted to hotels.

Clark's advantages have virtually confirmed its hoped-for destiny. It has been designated by successive Philippines governments as the country's future international gateway. Clark and Subic are now designated special economic zones offering tax incentives to investors.

Clark's progress will not, however, be easy, says Colayco, who also heads Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC), and chairs Clark Airport Ground Handling Services (CAGHSI), a joint venture business with a 25-year contract, including 10-year exclusivity in return for the seed capital investment needed to bring the airport to operational status. Although it was former President Fidel Ramos' dream to make Clark the premier gateway, he also signed an agreement with a group that proposed to build NAIA's Terminal 3.

That contract legally commits the government to a policy that no other international airport will be developed and NAIA will not meet competition until it has enjoyed two consecutive years with over 10 million passengers annually. There are, however, genuine reasons to be sceptical as to whether NAIA 3 is viable and whether it will be built and operated.

Colayco asserts, that until NAIA's future direction becomes clear, the development of Subic-Clark has ample impetus to advance without contravening NAIA's government protection. CAGHSI says it requires only a modest frequency of turnarounds weekly to be cash positive. Already, Philippines-based Intercontinental Pacific Airways (IPAI) has announced plans to operate a passenger and freight charter network from Clark for San Francisco-Honolulu-Clark-Hong Kong flights. Clark feeder services are to begin in August (Flight International, 14-20 July). Colayco wants CAGHSI to establish a regional airline providing direct connections with the charters to bypass Manila, while also offering a Clark-Manila business link. Government policy that all cargo operations will be relocated from NAIA has yet to be clarified and implemented. DHL, which uses NAIA as a major hub, has been given until December to move from the Terminal 3 site and is considering whether it will relocate at NAIA, transfer to Clark, or seek another Asian hub.

Clark's Central Luzon Province location also attracts charter operators carrying overseas contract workers to and from the Philippines, many of which come from areas north of Clark, so that direct charters offer savings of several hours travel time, and some relief for Manila's traffic jams. One such operator has already signed an agreement to relocate 10 flights a year from NAIA to Clark from September. FedEx will establish a new long-haul hub at Clark by February 2000, flying at least daily from Memphis via Honolulu to Clark. Although FedEx's intra-Asian Airbus A310 operation is committed to Subic Bay until 2007, with a 10-year option, a tollway between Subic Bay and Clark will link the two hubs while FedEx decides its future strategies.

Colayco seeks Japanese Government development financing for that project, saying: "We require an effective transfer system, both a highway and a rail link, but there isn't sufficient political will to get it going. That's why we must cut a path for ourselves. If we can't have passengers, we will certainly have cargo, so in the near- and medium-term our principal thrust would be to develop Clark into a cargo hub, with Subic Bay guaranteed a major role in forming a new and more efficient cargo infrastructure.''

airlift terminal

Colayco's plan is to develop Subic as a modern container port, linked through Clark with an expressway to Manila. "You'll then see the potentially powerful synergies between a modern airport, a modern sea port and a proper roadway. On top of that, we are in the midst of the best agricultural land in the country. Irrigation works in progress, with the planned transport infrastructure, mean that Central Luzon could become a centre for agriculture and value-added processing for export markets."

Clark's former airlift terminal, which will function as a common user facility until the planned new terminal's modular development brings it to equivalent utility, has a turnaround capability equivalent to about 1.5 Boeing 747s, with potential for modular add-on capacity. Development of the planned new terminal, providing for up to 15 million passengers a year and virtually unlimited room to expand, is expected to be through a joint venture with investors.

The Pat Lynch Group, a Cairns, Australia-based ground-handling agent, has 70% of CAGHSI and the Philippines' Government the rest through CIAC. Group operations manager Paul Cleary says: "It was a chicken-and-egg situation. Nobody was prepared to seed the project with capital, so we did that. We've built the chicken to lay the first egg.''

Source: Flight International

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