Buses in malls provide access to Clark airport

CLARK FREEPORT—Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) has linked its gateway to bus services and passengers’ terminals in shopping malls to improve the access of more than 24 million residents in the Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Cordillera and Central Luzon regions to the Clark International Airport (CRK).

OFFICIALS of Clark International Airport Corp. will bring the facility in Pampanga province closer to passengers in northern and central Luzon regions through bus trips from selected shopping malls. TONETTE OREJAS/INQUIRER CENTRAL LUZON

Lawyer Emigdio Tanjuatco III, president and chief operating officer of CIAC, said the next CRK road show sets up this new arrangement with Tuguegarao City and the provinces of Isabela and Cagayan.

CIAC first established a terminal lounge and shuttle services to CRK at Trinoma Mall in Quezon City in January 2012. Similar partnerships were set up at SM Clark in January 2014 and Robinsons Starmills in the City of San Fernando in Pampanga province on March 12. Genesis Transport Inc. pioneered the bus services to CRK.

Northern Luzon residents usually commute to the Dau terminal in Mabalacat town, take a jeepney ride to the Clark Freeport, and ride a jeep or taxi to CRK. Buses are available for inbound travelers.

Tanjuatco said CIAC had focused on the northern and central Luzon market, which is close to CRK.

He cited a CIAC study showing that 16 percent of passengers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) in 2014 came from northern and central Luzon.

Last week, CIAC presented a set of proposals to Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya in a bid to push for national support to the development of CRK, a former facility of the US Air Force.

The proposals asked the Aquino government to establish a policy on the direction of CRK growth, approve a charter converting CIAC into the Clark International Airport Authority, allow airlines to fly directly to CRK under the international fifth and sixth freedom rights, approve the granting of two to three years moratorium in the collection of travel tax, and return CIAC to the Philippine air negotiating panel.

The current terminal can take 5 million passengers but passengers of 10 domestic and international airlines total less than 1 million after 2013, a CIAC report showed.

Pro-CRK advocates are opposing government’s plan to construct an airport at Sangley Point in Cavite province to solve congestion at the Naia.

The idea is “crazy,” said Alexander Cauguiran, cofounder of the Move Clark Now, citing Sangley’s coastal location and the cost.

Abaya has declined to defend the Sangley plan in a national debate, saying, “I’d rather listen and act in the last two minutes [of the Aquino administration].”

He said a P12-billion terminal plan for CRK is pending before the board of the National Economic and Development Authority. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon