Metro Pacific keen on bidding for Clark Airport O&M

Infrastructure giant Metro Pacific Investments Corp. said it would consider bidding for the operations and maintenance of Clark International Airport in Pampanga once an auction is launched by the government.

“We will take a look at it,” Metro Pacific chair Manuel V. Pangilinan said last week.

Pangilinan made his interest in the project known as the government said Clark Airport would be among its hybrid public-private partnerships projects, a policy wherein the government would finance, design and build the project and the private sector would later be invited to bid for the operations and management component.

Metro Pacific had long sought to expand into airport operations to add to its growing portfolio that spans electricity retail, power generation, tollroads, water services, railways and more recently, logistics.

It lost in the bidding for Mactan Cebu International Airport in 2014. It is also keen on the development of the Davao, Bacolod, Iloilo, Laguindingan and New Bohol airports and the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), both listed as PPPs.

The Department of Transportation eventually decided to place the Naia project under review while the regional airports would follow the hybrid PPP model.

According to the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, the first phase of the Clark Airport project would cost about P12.5 billion. The plan was to build a new terminal that could accommodate some eight million passengers yearly.

Clark Airport has a capacity of four million passengers, but it is significantly underutilized.
Metro Pacific had also offered to develop and operate Clark Airport this year via a P337 billion joint venture with the BCDA.

There were two other private sector offers for Clark Airport—one from Megawide Construction Corp. and India’s GMR Infrastructure and the other from JG Summit Holdings Inc. and Filinvest Development Corp.