Delay to cramp terminals

A delay in construction work means having to  put up with a congested passenger terminal in  the Mactan International Airport till early next year.

Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) general manager  Nigel Paul Villarete said work was behind schedule in the  P178.6-million airport expansion, which  was supposed to be finished by September.

The new date for completion is the first quarter of 2012.

“We suffered some technical problems in the project implementation, which caused the delay,” Villarete said in yesterday’s forum hosted by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA-7).

Part of the construction plan for  the expansion was not accurate, he said.  Some facilities and underground wires were not covered, requiring a review.

Airport passenger traffic increased to 19 percent in the first quarter of 2011 or a total of 5.2 million passengers.

The  airport terminal can accommodate 5 million passengers.

Villarete assured the delayed work  would not affect airport operations  like flights schedules and servicing of cargoes and passengers.

When the expansion is finished in the first quarter of 2012, it can  accommodate 6,000 more passengers.

The expansion, which covers y 2,500 square meters of the domestic and international terminals, includes the construction of two boarding bridges, two passageway bridges and two passenger lounges.

The additional terminals will decongest  passenger flow, Villarete said.

“Only the terminal is congested, but the airport is not,” he said.

Meanwhile, Villarete said they will conduct a “careful study” of the proposal of Cordova Mayor Adelino Sitoy to transfer Mactan airport to  Cordova town.

“I’m drafting my report to the Secretary to inform the DOTC of the proposal,” he said.

Villarete said he  would also request DOTC for the conduct of feasibility studies on the proposal.

“In a few months, we hope that new studies will be done,” Villarete told reporters.

Cordova Mayor  Sitoy offered his town as an alternate site for the Mactan international airport.  He raised this during  the presentation of the master plan on the expansion of MCIAA last July 28.

The Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) presented the master plan for  the P1.3-million grant to conduct the feasibility study, which began last September until December this year.

Sitoy said Lapu-Lapu city could no longer accommodate the expansion since it is already congested and would further worsen traffic woes.

Villarete said Koica would also consider Sitoy’s proposal on the final report but they could not provide an in-depth report on the Cordova proposal since another study would involve financial constraints.

“I hope we will not go into  dissenting arguments on the airport development. We should look for solution as a people,” Villarete said.

He stressed  the need for strong ties in Public-Private Partnership to fund the feasibility study for the Cordova proposal and the implementation of the master plan by Koica.

Based on Koica’s traffic demand forecast,  domestic passengers will  increase from 3,841,990 passengers in  2009 to 6,260,047 by 2015.

International passengers will increase from 920,000 last 2009 to 1,472,301 by 2015.