A one-kilometer “rapid exit taxiway” will be constructed at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Manila next year to accommodate faster movement of aircraft, said Philippine Transportation and Communications Secretary Manuel Roxas II.
The P300-million project will significantly improve current aircraft movement — landing or takeoff — from 36 to 60 every hour. The additional taxiway will be built parallel to existing ones.
Rapid-exit taxiways allow aircraft to vacate the runway at greater speeds, permitting another to land or depart in a shorter space of time.
“We will rationalize slotting so that if the passenger expects his flight to be at 10 am, the aircraft will be there on time,” Roxas explained.
Construction will take a year and will only be done during the 2am and 5am window when runways are closed.
Bidding will take place before end of the year and construction to start in February 2012.
NAIA Terminals 1 and 2 are now bursting at the seams. “We are expecting to reach the rated capacity limit of 31 million passengers by year-end or if not, certainly by next year. For Terminal 3, it already served about 10 million passengers or 1.5 million international and 8.1 million domestic, which is the design rated capacity of the terminal,” Roxas said.
Earlier, the transport department bared plans to privatize NAIA to fund the $2.5 billion needed to expand the Clark International Airport.
Recently NAIA Terminal 1 was voted as the world’s worst airport by “The Guide to Sleeping in Airports,” an interactive website that gathers reports from various reviewers. This compares to NAIA’s fifth spot in last year’s survey.
Singapore’s Changi, Hong Kong, and Seoul’s Incheon were this year’s top three airports, respectively.
