Mactan airport to have new passenger bridges

The P215 million passenger boarding bridge project will soon be implemented at the Mactan Cebu International Airport.

Nigel Paul Villarete, MCIAA general manager, said yesterday that four of these six new passenger boarding bridges would replace the old passenger tubes in the old terminal while the remaining two bridges would be placed in the new terminal.

Villarete said the six new boarding bridges would feature glass transparent tubes.

These boarding bridges would be imported as the winning bidder, CIMC Chanda is from China, said Villarete.

The boarding bridges are expected to arrive from China this April.

He said the project was approved after the old passenger bridges would get destroyed from time to time and airport personnel would have a hard time replacing spare parts, which they sometimes would get from the available spare parts of the other working passenger bridges.

Aside from the passenger bridges, Villarete said they would upgrade the Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) of the airport.

He said the project had already been approved and the budget would be taken from the P32 million budget of the airport.

cctv details

He, however, said that the details had yet to be discussed with the Department of Budget and Management, Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Immigration.

The high-end cameras will be placed in 14 counters of the Bureau of Immigration, both in arrival and departure areas.

Villarete said that the airport had 100 CCTV cameras but there were still some deadspots to be covered.

“The budget of the cctv high-end cctv camera will be taken from the existing budget of P32 million and whatever necessary budget which will be required entire terminal we will just have to allocate more funds in the later supplemental budget,” he said.

X-RAY MACHINES

There’s also a proposal for X-ray machines.

“We are trying our best to upgrade the major systems in the airport,” Villarete said.

Last year the authority procured two, 500 ton chillers which were already delivered and installed.

He said that the cooling capacity of the entire terminal was more than enough to operate, 24 hours and seven days a week

“More than enough, to even address the surge of passengers coming in the years to come, in the next 5-10 years,” he said adding that the procurement of airhandling units will be completed in April to give even coolness in the terminal.