Philippine Airlines revives proposal to fly Manila-Clark

Flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) plans to revive a proposal to fly between Manila and Clark as part of its strategy to develop Clark International Airport as a new hub this year.

PAL has submitted an application with Air Coordination Australia (ACA), a third party slot coordinator at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), three weeks ago but it was rejected due to unavailability of slots at the premier airport. NAIA can only handle a maximum of 40 air traffic movements per hour.

“One way of developing the market (Clark) is for us to operate between Clark and Manila. We filed for slots for Manila-Clark but were denied,” Jaime Bautista, PAL president and chief executive officer, told reporters in an interview at the sidelines of the contract signing betweenEasytrip Service Corp. and PAL.

PAL sees a market potential for the 20-minute flight from Manila to Clark, which may be key in increasing the traffic in Clark.

“If you really want to develop the market, there should be a flight between the two airports. It’s not too far. It’s a very short flight, but I’m sure there are passengers who are willing to take a shorter travel time and pay a little more as compared to road travel of three to four hours,” Bautista said.

He plans to refile the application with ACA and is optimistic to get slots for two flights a day, one in the morning and another in the evening.

“We’ll find another timing,” added Bautista.

PAL will start operating in Clark before the end of the year in compliance with the government’s directive to transfer some of its flights to decongest NAIA.

Initially, PAL will transfer some of its domestic and international flights or around five to 10 flights daily to Clark.

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) has prioritized to build connectivity between NAIA and Clark International Airport through rail and road to make it more viable for passengers to fly out of Clark to redistribute the traffic at NAIA, which currently handles 87 percent of all the country’s air traffic movement.

Due to congestion, passengers experience an average of 31 minutes to one hour delays for a flight from Manila and up to two hours for a flight coming back to Manila.

Aside from redistribution of traffic to other airports, DOTr together with the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines through a special power will carry out the immediate transfer of general aviation to Sangley Airport to decongest NAIA.

The government also plansto extend night operations of provincial airports by immediately procuring equipmentthrough direct contracting to make provincial airports night rated and decongest day operations in Manila.

The country has over 80 airports of which only 11 are international airports-all night rated, namely Laoag, Clark, Subic Bay, NAIA, Kalibo, Iloilo, Cebu, Puerto Princesa, Davao, Zamboanga and General Santos.