NAIA Consortium open to tweaking proposal

The “super consortium” seeking to expand and operate Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) touted on Wednesday the flexibility of its offer, saying that even an earlier announced 35-year concession period could be shortened to suit the government’s preference.

The Naia consortium, comprised of seven of the country’s largest conglomerates, held a briefing yesterday to share additional details on its P350-billion offer to upgrade the country’s busiest airport.

Naia consortium, whose 35-year concession proposal was based on its offer to build a new parallel runway on a reclaimed land in Manila Bay, drew immediate comparisons to the proposal of Megawide Construction Corp. and India’s GMR Infrastructure.

The latter went with an airside-focused proposal valued at less than half of the super consortium’s and with an 18-year concession, which was perceived to offer more flexibility to a government that had been vague on its long-term strategy for airports serving Metro Manila.

“We would be open to a shorter concession,” Jose Reverente, Naia consortium spokesperson, said yesterday.

Reverente said the specific terms in its unsolicited proposal could still be negotiated with the Department of Transportation, the implementing agency, before it would be turned over to the National Economic and Development Authority. Once approved, it would undergo a competitive challenge.

He said they could even agree to a 15-year concession. However, doing so would rule out a new runway, he added.

Private sector offers have been emerging ever since the Duterte administration opened the door to unsolicited proposals. The problem with Naia is pronounced, given its status as a primary gateway and the fact that it already exceeded its design capacity of 31 million passengers per year by 35.5 percent, or 11 million passengers, in 2017.

“The worst thing that will happen is we don’t do anything and Naia will become a constraint to our economic growth. It already is,” Reverente said.

The Naia consortium also took comfort with the fact that it was the first to submit an offer to the government. It did so on Feb. 12 while Megawide-GMR submitted on March 1 this year. Under the Build Operate Transfer Law, the implementing agency uses a “first in time approach” when reviewing multiple proposals for the same project.

Naia consortium said that assuming its offer was approved within the year, it could increase the airport’s capacity to 65 million passengers yearly by 2022. The third runway and a supporting passenger terminal can bring this up to about 100 million passengers a year.

The consortium also sees runway capacity to about 100 takeoff and landing movements per hour from the current 40 movements, assuming a third runway is built. The consortium will also build a “people mover” mass transit system that will ferry passengers from Naia terminals 1, 2 and 3.