Solar-Sy group still keen on Sangley airport rehab

A consortium backed by Solar Group’s Wilson Tieng and Henry Sy said it remained keen on pursuing a plan to rehabilitate the Danilo Atienza Airport in Sangley, Cavite, so it can be used by small aircraft and budget airlines.

The P1-billion unsolicited proposal, aimed at cutting congestion in Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport, was in line with a separate, but larger, proposal to reclaim about 2,500 hectares in offshore Sangley to serve as the site for a new international air gateway, seaport and industrial zone.

The larger project, dubbed the Philippines Global Gateway, has an estimated budget of P1.3 trillion. It is spearheaded by Tieng-led All-Asia Resources and Reclamation Corp. (ARRC), which recently got a major partner, taipan Henry Sy Sr.’s  Belle Corp., which will take a 49-percent stake.

The budget airport proposal was envisioned to be implemented first, assuming the government would approve it, given its much smaller scope.

“We can finish the project in one year and will cost only P1 billion. This is a low-hanging fruit with significant benefits to the public since it will

allow Naia to increase its runway movements from 40 takeoffs and landings per hour to about 60,” Wilson Tieng, ARRC president and CEO, said in a statement Wednesday.

ARRC submitted its proposal to the government in August.

He said that since August, when the new Naia administration imposed a partial ban on small private planes, commercial flights’ on-time performance sharply improved from 40 percent to some 80 percent.

Tieng said ARRC was ready to start building the new terminal and rehabilitate the runway.