CEBU CITY—Citing increasing passenger traffic, a Cebuano lawmaker has asked the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to build a second runway for Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) in Lapu-Lapu City.
Rep. Raul del Mar (Cebu City, north district) said the airport, the country’s second busiest after Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, would no longer be enough to accommodate passenger traffic in the next 11 years.
Del Mar has proposed a bill calling for the establishment of a second MCIA runway and hoped that it would be taken up during the first session of the 16th Congress.
The MCIA, which serves as a hub for air transport in southern Philippines, has recorded a nine-percent increase in passenger traffic, he said, in an explanatory note to the draft bill.
Total passenger movement was placed at 6.8 million and aircraft maneuvering at 58,888. The Department of Tourism also reported that Cebu registered 2.2 million in tourist arrivals.
Del Mar asked the DOTC to fund the feasibility study, detailed engineering and implementation of the runway project. It included access taxiways, rapid exit taxiways, lighting system and navigation and landing equipment.
MCIA airport manager Nigel Paul Villarete said the airport’s development plan had included the construction of a second runway. The existing runway, measuring 45 meters by 3.3 kilometers, is still enough to accommodate existing passenger traffic, he said.
“But if we continue to grow, the time will come that there will be a breach of our capacity,” Villarete said.
Villarete said the airport’s land area of about 500 hectares was still enough to accommodate a second runway with similar specifications as the first one.
The acquisition of a few nearby lots would be necessary for airport clearance, he said.
Villarete said the property occupied by Mactan Benito Ebuen Air Base would be useful during the implementation of the MCIA’s third terminal project between 2030 and 2040. Doris Bongcac, Inquirer Visayas