Trip to Ifugao terraces faster with Clark-N. Vizcaya flights
BAGABAG, NUEVA VIZCAYA—Twenty eight passengers alighted from a Dornier 328 plane at Bagabag Airport last week, marking the inaugural flight of a commercial airline to this interior town in recent years.
Bagabag serves as a gateway to the Ifugao rice terraces and the rest of northern Luzon. The plane of Wakay Air touched down in Barangay Lantap on May 17, after a 30-minute flight from Clark International Airport in Pampanga province.
It carried a group of tourists from Europe, accompanied by local government and tourism officials.
“Bringing air connectivity to this part of the country … [was] a long-held dream of the people of Nueva Vizcaya and Ifugao,” said Tourism Undersecretary Alma Rita Jimenez.
The flight cuts travel time from Metro Manila to the Ifugao terraces by five hours. The trip normally requires visitors to take an eight-hour land drive.
A native of Gattaran town in Cagayan province, Jimenez said she was no stranger to the hardships faced by Cagayan Valley residents who needed to take “long and arduous land travel” to and from Metro Manila.
Bagabag Airport used to be an airfield built by American soldiers during World War II, said Leonardo Afan Jr., who
operates the airport for the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.
It served as a community airport after it was upgraded to a domestic airport by the late former President Diosdado Macapagal, Afan said.
But Philippine Airlines, which flew tourists to Ifugao via Bagabag in the 1970s, dropped that flight route. In 2000, SeaAir briefly operated charter flights to Bagabag for tourists.
The flights will generate investment opportunities for northern Luzon, according to James Ong, Wakay Air operations manager. He said the Clark-Bagabag flights would be sustained by Wakay Air, in partnership with AirSwift Transport Inc., which owns the aircraft.
At present, Wakay Air’s Clark-Bagabag flights will be mostly tour packages, but it is expected to start local bookings by December, Ong said.
Because Bagabag Airport still requires a complete upgrade of its navigational equipment, flights will require clear visibility, Afan said. —MELVIN GASCON
