Philippine expands Clark airport to decongest national capital

MANILA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The new terminal of the Clark International Airport in the northern Philippines will start operation by the middle of next year, Philippine officials said on Thursday.

Aside from the new terminal, officials also announced a plan to build a second runway as part of the government's efforts to decongest the decades-old International Airport in Manila as well as the traffic in the national capital.

Clark Airport, north of Manila, is about 91 km from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Metro Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

The officials said the new terminal of the Clark International Airport is already 53-percent complete and is expected to be operational by mid-2020. By then, the officials said passenger capacity will be tripled, adding another 8 million to the current capacity of 4.2 million yearly.

Philippine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said, "The expansion of the Airport has been on the government's drawing board for 20 years."

Full Airport development which spans four phases will generate over 80 million passengers annually, making Clark International Airport at par with the biggest Airports in the region.

This Airport expansion, which has thus far been the fastest infrastructure project implemented by the Duterte administration, sets the template for all other ventures under the "Build, Build, Build" program, Dominguez said.

The Clark International Airport is envisioned by the government as the country's next premier gateway that will help clear the congestion at the NAIA and anchor the rapid development of New Clark City in the northern Philippines.

NAIA, the country's busiest gateway, handles more than 40 million passengers yearly, or more than its design capacity of 31 million passengers a year.

The New Clark City, which is a flagship project of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority of the Philippines, will be transformed into a new business hub and an administrative area from a former military base.

Because of its strategic location, New Clark City is being positioned as one of the solutions to decongesting Metro Manila as several government agencies will be relocated to the city.

The traffic congestion has been worsening during the past decades in Metro Manila, which has an overall population of 20 million.