NAIA Consortium open to shorter concession

MANILA, Philippines — The NAIA Consortium, composed of the country’s seven biggest conglomerates, is open to a shorter concession period for its offer to upgrade the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).

“We will be open to a shorter concession,” NAIA Consortium spokesperson Jose Emmanuel Reverente said in a press conference.

The group, composed of Aboitiz InfraCapital Inc., AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., Alliance Global Group Inc., Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp., Filinvest Development Corp., JG Summit Holdings Inc. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp., submitted a P350 billion proposal for the NAIA’s upgrade to the Department of Transportation (DOTr) last Feb.12.

It tapped Changi International Airport, which currently runs the main airport in Singapore, as technical partner.

The proposal would cover a 35-year concession period, and involves development of the airport in two phases.

Phase 1 will involve improvements and expansion of the terminals in the existing NAIA land area, while Phase 2 will cover the development of an additional runway, taxiways, passenger terminals and associated support infrastructure.

In addition, the proposal includes a people mover that will link the terminals and connect NAIA to the existing mass transport system in Metro Manila, as well as an option for a third runway.

“In a shorter concession scenario, we probably won’t have time to build a third runway, if the government chooses another long term solution on the issue of passenger congestion,” Reverente said.

Aside from the NAIA Consortium, the group of Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructure Ltd. of India has also submitted a $3 billion proposal to rehabilitate the country’s main airport covering a shorter 18-year concession period last March 1.

While another group has submitted a proposal to the government for the upgrade of the NAIA, Reverente said the NAIA Consortium’s proposal would be evaluated first under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law implementing rules and regulations (IRR).

“Under the BOT IRR, the one who submits first, gets to be reviewed first, and other proposals will only be considered after there is a failure of negations with the one who submitted first. So, we’ll go through the entire process, and if that process fails, they (government) can open the proposals of those who submitted after us,” he said.

AC Infrastructure president and chief executive officer Jose Rene Almendras said based on the BOT Law and the prescribed period of a Swiss challenge, an approval of the NAIA Consortium’s proposal could be given within the year.

“If you look at the BOT Law and the prescribed period that is required for tendering the Swiss challenge, you can have Notice to Proceed by Dec. 31, which is crucial to meeting the projected passenger demand forecast by 2020,” he said.

Reverente said the proposal was submitted by to offer a solution to the congestion at the NAIA.

Last year, the NAIA handled 42 million passengers, well-above its capacity of 31 million passengers per year.

When the proposal is approved and undertaken, Reverente said the consortium aims to bring passenger capacity of the NAIA to 47 million by 2020 and increase it further to 65 million by 2022.

“The NAIA expansion is really the best solution we have now while we are waiting for other solutions to be designed and approved,” he said.

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