JG Summit-FDC consortium taking over Clark Airport operations

A consortium of conglomerates led by the Gokongwei family’s JG Summit Holdings and Gotianun-led Filinvest Development Corp. is set to assume the operations of Clark International Airport in Pampanga on Aug. 16 this year.

This was announced on Friday by Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, who viewed Clark Airport as a key component in the government’s drive to decongest Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).

The development marks an important milestone for JG Summit, which owns budget airline Cebu Pacific, and Filinvest, which is developing a portion of the New Clark City, as both companies have long eyed the airport sector as a growth engine.

It also paves the way for the Pampanga air gateway to offer world-class standards given that the consortium’s technical partner is a unit of Singapore’s Changi Airport Group, which runs one of the world’s top international hubs.

The turnover of Clark Airport’s operations and maintenance (O&M) followed a bidding process that ended in December last year. The Clark Airport project is the administration’s first and only hybrid Public-Private Partnership project to be awarded thus far.

Under the contract, consortium members JG Summit, Filinvest, Philippine Airport Ground Support Solutions and Changi Airports Philippines will operate Clark Airport under a 25-year concession period.

The takeover comes ahead of the completion of a brand-new passenger terminal, which will at least double Clark Airport’s current capacity to eight million passengers a year.

Being built by Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructure, the new terminal will open by the middle of 2020, Tugade said on Friday.

Bi Yong Chungunco, president of Luzon International Premier Airport Development Corp., the private entity that will run Clark Airport moving forward, said the group is ready for the turnover this week.

“Once the new terminal is there, we will re-purpose the old terminal,” she said, adding that it can be converted into a convention center, among a list of options.

Clark Airport, located about 100 kilometers north of Manila, was showered with newfound prominence under the Duterte administration, which sought to transform Clark into the country’s “next big metropolis.”

One of the Department of Transportation’s largest projects is a train line that will connect Manila and Clark by the end of Duterte’s term in 2022.

While it has an annual capacity of four million passengers, Clark Airport’s volume in the years before the current regime hovered below one million passengers.

For the first time in its history, Clark Airport breached two million passengers in the first semester of 2019 due to congestion in Naia and as the DOTr encouraged airlines to move to Clark.

Apart from Clark Airport, conglomerate San Miguel Corp. won a bidding exercise to build a massive international airport complex in nearby Bulacan province. The government is also studying an offer by seven conglomerates, including JG Summit and Filinvest, to operate and upgrade Naia.