With Terminal 3 fully operational, Manila’s image seen to improve

MANILA, Philippines–An influential European business group welcomed the full operations of the controversial Terminal 3 project in Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport that start Thursday, saying this would bolster tourism and trade, even as it expressed disappointment over the government’s failure to address the “fair compensation” of the facility’s European contractor.

The transportation department said the Terminal 3 project would be 100 percent operational starting July 31, after a year-long “completion works” contract with Japan’s Takenaka Corp. was sealed last year.

Naia Terminal 3 had been operating at half its intended capacity since it opened six years ago. Now, it will be able to accommodate the relocation of five international carriers from the congested Terminal 1, where the strain has further increased due to an ongoing rehabilitation program.

Henry Schumacher, the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) vice president for external affairs, said the move would paint a more favorable picture for travelers, especially those used to the aging Terminal 1.

“Tourists and businessmen will get a better impression on arrival compared to Terminal 1,” Schumacher told the Inquirer in a text message Wednesday.

The carriers that will move to Terminal 3 are Delta Airlines, KLM Royal, Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Cathay Pacific, the department said.

Schumacher noted, however, that more work was needed beyond repairing the airport’s physical image. He was referring to the controversial history of Naia Terminal 3, which was scheduled to open in 2002 but had been mothballed instead for six years after the Arroyo administration found anomalies with the contract.

Those anomalies at the time included violations against the anti-dummy law. The government expropriated Terminal 3 in 2004.

“We are sad, however, that the government’s promise when expropriating Terminal 3 in 2004 [to] compensate the original investors fairly has still not been fulfilled,” Schumacher said. “The compensation issue remains on the EU agenda, hoping that the issue can be resolved fast and that it will no longer burden relations.”

Germany’s Fraport AG is the foreign partner of the project’s winning contractor Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco). Both have since filed suits abroad to recoup their investment in the Terminal 3 project.

The Philippines’ Court of Appeals last year said the government should pay Piatco a sum of $371.43 million following the expropriation of Naia Terminal 3. The amount, however, was much higher than the $175.79 million that a Pasig Regional Trial Court said was owed to Piatco in 2011.