India’s GMR Infrastructure Wins Cebu Airport Expansion Project



5 April 2014

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) awarded Friday the first Public-Private Partnership (PPP) airport project in the country to Megawide Construction Corp. and India’s GMR Infrastructure with a price tag of P17.5 billion.

The award came after resolving allegations raised by the second highest bidder Filinvest Development Corporation, a partner of Singapore’s Changi Airport Group Pte ltd., over the financial capability of GMR to fulfill its contractual obligations which currently operates airports in New Delhi and Hyderabad. Filinvest also sought disqualification of Megawide-GMR due to alleged conflict-of-interest.

Megawide-GMR consortium has denied all allegations.

Megawide-GMR consortium topped all other bids with an offer of P14.4-billion to the government in exchange for the right to operate Mactan-Cebu International Airport Terminal facility for 25 years which include building new terminal structure intended for international operations that can accommodate 8 million expected passengers that will use the new facility for the next 30 years. The old Terminal will likewise be re-configured for domestic operations with expected capacity of 16 million passengers per year.

“The existing terminal was built in 1995 and it had a capacity of around 4.5 million passengers per year, which was breached in 2010 when we exceeded 5 million passengers,” says Nigel Paul Villarete, General Manager of MCIA Authority.

Villatete notes that there is one international traveller for every 3 domestic travellers and DOTC projections for the next 20 years might not be enough to accommodate future influx of passengers at the airport.

Mactan airport handled 6.9 million passengers in 2013. In the same year passenger traffic grew at the rate of 14% for domestic flights and 11% for international flights.

Mactan-Cebu International Airport is the second busiest airport in the Philippines.

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