NAIA-3 services local flights in partial opening today

Posted on July 22, 2008

Cebu Daily News Overview The controversial Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 will be opened today to partial commercial operations with leading domestic carrier Cebu Pacific having five local flights.

The partial opening comes after a couple of failed “soft openings” earlier set by the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) after the agency’s P3-billion down payment to the builder of the terminal, the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco) in 2006.

Alfonso Cusi, MIAA general manager, said he believed NAIA-3 is “more than ready” to service the five flights of Cebu Pacific.

“The terminal itself is more than ready for the intended initial use. It would be the start-up event in our effort to put our Terminal 3 to productive use,” Cusi told The STAR.

The first regular flight to take off from the NAIA-3 will be Cebu Pacific’s Manila to Caticlan flight departing for the gateway municipality to the world-famous island resort Boracay at 5:50 a.m.

Cusi said Cebu Pacific will start the transfer of their domestic operations to the new terminal with an initial nine flights of their Manila to Boracay (Caticlan), Manila to Laoag, Manila to Naga, Manila to San Jose, and Manila to Tuguegarao today.

After a few days the air carrier would evaluate and plan the transfer of flights for their other destinations, Cusi said.

The airport chief said that the other local carriers, Air Philippines and fledgling low cost carrier PAL Express, both owned by tycoon Lucio Tan, are expected to follow Cebu Pacific within the week.

“If not tomorrow, maybe by Thursday,” Cusi said.

He said MIAA signed “agreements” with Cebu Pacific for the servicing of their flights at NAIA-3, but said the contracts only tackled basic guidelines and involved the same rates charged the airline on their use of the old Manila Domestic Airport.

“We have agreements signed with them. It just dealt with the basic guidelines. It’s only temporary,” Cusi said.

MIAA will hold ceremonies to celebrate the start-up of the terminal to be graced by Presidential Task Force on Terminal 3 Michael Defensor, Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza, Cebu Pacific president and general manager Lance Gokongwei.

A send-off ceremony will be held for Cebu Pacific flight 5J898, the second Manila to Caticlan flight of the airline for the day.

The MIAA was supposed to hold a soft opening of the facility in March 2006 but a 100-square meter portion of the terminal’s ceiling at its arrival lobby hall area collapsed a few days before the event.

MIAA again scheduled a soft opening of the terminal March last year but this was called off when two foreign engineering firms, Ove Arup and TCGI Engineering, warned about the danger it posed to passengers, citing serious structural defects in a structural evaluation they conducted on the facility.

The government’s expropriation of the facility came after the Supreme Court nullified the build-operate-transfer contract of Piatco to build and operate an international airport for the country in December 2004, after which the government took over the terminal.

The takeover, in turn, resulted in Piatco filing a case against the Philippine government before the International Chamber of Commerce based in Singapore.

Its German joint venture partner, Fraport AG, filed a separate case for arbitration before the International Center for the Settlement of Investments Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, D.C. in the US.

Recently, the ICSID junked the case filed by Fraport AG.

The government has already paid a P3-billion down payment to Piatco in 2006 representing the proffered value of the NAIA-3.

The expropriation case, filed by the government before the Pasay City regional trial court where the issue on just compensation to be paid by the government to Piatco would be settled, is still ongoing.

NAIA-3 services local flights in partial opening today

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