Tugade says gov’t to finish Ormoc City airport by 2020

ORMOC CITY — Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade on Thursday inspected the ongoing repair of the Ormoc City airport, saying the national government was committed to finish the project and make the facility operational.

“(The national government) is very, very committed to finishing this project. We’ll ensure that there will be commercial flights here,” he said in a brief interview.

The airport sustained major damages when it was hit by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in 2013 and by a major earthquake in 2017.

While its passenger terminal building has been completed, improvements on the other facilities like the asphalt overlay, strip grade correction project, and runway widening are ongoing.

The Department of Transportations has allocated P137 million for these improvements which were expected to be finished by 2020.

At present, the Ormoc airport, located in Barangay Airport, is off limits to commercial airlines.

A Mactan-based flying school, however, uses it to train its students.

In 2016, Cebu Pacific opened its Cebu-Ormoc flight but canceled it in 2018 due to the small number of passengers.

Mayor Richard Gomez said he was looking forward to making the Ormoc Airport fully operational to commercial flights so people of the city would no longer travel to Tacloban City where the Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport, the region’s premier airport, is located.

He also said that the airport’s business operation would attract more investors. /lzb