The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board’s Investment Coordination Committee-Cabinet Committee (ICC-CabCom) has approved the unsolicited proposal to rehabilitate and operate Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
ICC-CabCom last September 27 gave the green light to the unsolicited build-operate-transfer (BOT) proposal of NAIA Consortium—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.—to rehabilitate, upgrade, expand, operate, and maintain the country’s main air hub for 15 years.
The P102-billion proposal involves expanding and interconnecting the existing terminals of NAIA, upgrading airside facilities, developing commercial facilities to increase airline and airport efficiencies, enhancing passenger comfort and experience, and elevating the status of NAIA as the country’s premier international gateway.
These improvements, the consortium earlier said, will be implemented with minimal disruption to ongoing airport operations.
The rehabilitation is expected to boost NAIA’s passenger capacity to 47 million from the current 30.5 million in two years and to 64 million in four years.
With the ICC-CabCom approval, the consortium and the Department of Transportation can now negotiate the concession agreement, and later submit it to the NEDA Board for approval.
If approved, the proposal will undergo a Swiss challenge, wherein other companies are allowed to challenge the proposal.
NAIA Consortium was granted the original proponent status in August last year after it submitted its proposal in February 2018. Last July, however, the proposal was returned for revision following a decision to require all proponents of unsolicited airport projects to pattern their concession agreements after the operation and maintenance contract of Clark International Airport.
The NAIA consortium submitted its revised proposal also in the same month.
Aside from NAIA Consortium, another consortium, that of Megawide Construction Corporation and India’s GMR Infrastructure Ltd., has also submitted an unsolicited proposal to decongest and rehabilitate NAIA for an estimated project cost of US$3 billion (about P156 billion).
