Jan- Feb period 2019:MCIA traffic growth up 13% at 2 million

CEBU, Philippines — Passenger traffic at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport reached 2.004 million in the first two months of 2019.

The country’s second busiest air hub posted a 13% traffic growth during the period from 1.77 million in the same period last year, official data obtained by The FREEMAN showed.

From January to February, MCIA saw international passengers reaching 689,979.

Domestic passengers also totaled 1.31 million.

Since 2014, domestic traffic at MCIA also grew at an average growth rate of 9.8%.

In 2018, MCIA saw its passenger traffic reaching over 11 million from 6.9 million in 2014, growing at an average growth of 13%.

Airport operator GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. is expecting MCIA’s passenger capacity to increase to 16 million per year once the renovation of domestic Terminal 1 is completed this year.

Ravishankar Saravu, chief commercial advisor, earlier said renovation of T1 is scheduled to be completed this year.

Saravu haf said the airport operator has remained optimistic on growth prospects as it aims to expand the the country’s second busiest air hub in the future.

Both Terminal 1 and 2 will be expanded by 2024 to hit its target of 28 million passengers.

Terminal 2 officially opened last year, catering to international flights and passengers.

The private operator had previously planned to get a concession to build a third terminal projected to start by 2035, as part of its long-term development plan for the airport.

In June 2017, GMR-Megawide had submitted a P208-billion unsolicited proposal to the government to further develop MCIA.

The airport’s long-term target is to increase its capacity to at least 50 million passengers per year.

Under the proposal, the expansion will be undertaken in three phases, with the first involving the rehabilitation of MCIA’s existing runway and taxiways; construction of an additional parallel taxiway to serve as emergency runway; and the development of additional rapid exit taxiways and runway holding positions, upon takeover of the airside facilities.

The second phase will involve the construction of a second parallel and independent runway, while the third and final phase is the building of a third terminal for additional passengers.