Despite more and more airlines using Clark International Airport (CIA), two hours north of Manila, as a hub cargo shippers in the area will for now have to book their shipments on regular flights or course these through Manila airports.
Practically all airlines servicing Clark are low-cost carriers (LCC) and are thus focused on the passage service.
“Most airlines using Clark right now, particularly the LCCs, are more concerned over faster turnaround of passengers to and from CIA,” Airphil senior vice president for marketing and sales Alfredo Herrera explained.
“Accommodating cargo will only hamper (turnaround),” Cunanan, who is also manager for the airline’s corporate planning and MIS department, added.
“Right now, cargo operations are still limited to the regular carriers or the so-called legacy carriers.”
Cunanan said airlines operating out of CIA have, however, hinted they are looking at cargo operations in the future considering Clark is being groomed as a manufacturing and logistics hub.
But for now the plan to build a dedicated cargo terminal remains in the backburner.
The focus is on expanding the passenger terminal at a cost of P357 million. The expansion will allow CIA to handle 4 million passengers a year from the current 2.5 million.
For evaluation are five bids submitted by E.M. Cuerpo Inc, Izumo Contractors Inc, Terp Asia Construction Corp, IPM Construction and Development Corp, and Marcbilt Construction Inc for phase 2 of the expansion program.
Results of the qualification proceedings are to be announced next month.
Last year, CIA handled 19% more international passengers to 725,023 from 607,704 in 2010.
Photo from http://www.dmia.ph/indexmain.
