LRMC sees losses of P720 million

MANILA, Philippines — Revenue losses of the Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC), the private operator of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1), are expected to balloon to as high as P720 million by end-May due to the suspension of rail operations.

Average daily revenue from LRT-1’s rail operations stood at about P8 million to P10 million on normal operations, a former LRMC official who requested anonymity told The STAR.

Based on these figures, LRMC’s revenue losses due to non-operations of the rail line until the end of the month may reach   P576 million to P720 million.

Operations of LRT-1 were suspended on March 17 after the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon to limit the spread of the virus.

Excluding four days of the Holy Week in which LRT-1’s operations are normally suspended, the rail line will be out of service for a total of 72 days until May 31.

LRMC, a consortium   composed of MPIC’s Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., Ayala’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) PTE Ltd., said average daily ridership of the LRT-1 is 500,000.

In the first quarter, LRMC’s core net income fell by 19 percent to P180 million as it already felt   the impact of suspension of operations with the Luzon-wide quarantine.

LRMC president and CEO Juan Alfonso earlier said that LRT-1’s ridership was also affected by the suspension of classes in January due to Taal Volcano’s eruption.

LRT-1 currently has 20 stations spanning from Roosevelt Station to Baclaran.

LRMC hopes to resume operations, even with a limited capacity, next week should Metro Manila be placed under general community quarantine (GCQ).

LRMC said it is working toward stringent health protocols such as social distancing, health screening, and deployment of COVID-19 response protocols that would ensure passenger safety once train operations resume.

According to the Department of Transportation, passenger riding capacity of LRT-1 under GCQ would be at 12 percent based on physical simulation of passengers inside a train car while maintaining one-meter social distancing.

MPIC chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said in a webinar last month that liquidity support is needed by transportation companies whose operations have been shut down due to lockdowns and would have reduced capacities once allowed to resume.

“I think the airlines, obviously tourism, transportation companies are the hardest hit. We operate the LRT-1 that has been shut down by the government,  so we have no revenues.   I think we need to give them some kind of liquidity support,” Pangilinan said.