Áncash, una de las regiones con mayor índice demográfico en el país, contará con un nuevo aeropuerto, según informó el Congreso de la República.
El nuevo terminal aeroportuario tendrá el nombre de Santiago Antúnez de Mayolo y estará ubicado en el distrito de Cátac, de la provincia de Recuay, lugar estratégico en el ámbito comercial.
La parlamentaria María Melgarejo Paúcar, autora del proyecto, explicó que es imprescindible la construcción de un terminal aeroportuario internacional en Cátac, a fin de dinamizar la conexión aérea nacional e internacional, impulsar la economía, cultura y el turismo.
“Los proyectos de los aeropuertos de Chincheros (Cusco) y Orcotuna (Junín) han fracasado por motivos conocidos. El aeropuerto de Antúnez de Mayolo se complementa geográficamente con el Jorge Chávez. Por tal motivo, consideró que es el llamado a ser construido”, expresó la congresista.
In line with the administration’s ambitious Build Build Build program, 28 airport projects for construction/rehabilitation/ upgrade are listed in the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) priority agenda. Of the 28, three international airport projects – Lal-Lo, Puerto Prinsesa, and Mactan-Cebu – and four domestic airport projects – Tuguegarao, Calbayog, Ozamis, and Naga – have already been finished.
The Clark International Airport expansion project is due to be completed on June 2020.
These projects are projected to upgrade the country’s aviation industry, and will ensure greater regional accessibility. In the long run, this will propel a sustained economic growth through an improved and more convenient movement of people and products, and generate quality jobs for Filipinos.
Night-rating of airports
Equipping airports with night-rating capabilities allows them to accommodate evening flights, thereby increasing their daily service capacity. As of October 2018, 20 out of the existing 42 airports nationwide have already been night-rated. In 2017, four airports – Legaspi, Roxas, Dumaguete, and Caticlan – were equipped with night-rating capabilities. And early this year, the Tuguegarao airport has also been night-rated.
Four more airports – Naga, Dipolog, Cotabato, and Cauayan – are targeted to be completed this year.
Construction of new airports
With a 2.1-kilometer runway to accommodate heavier aircrafts, the Lal-lo International Airport in Cagayan commenced operations last March 2018. With this, the airport is now capable of catering to commercial jet aircrafts and other heavier aircrafts, besides chartered flights. The Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) also aims to fast-track the construction of the remaining runway facilities for smoother and safer flights.
Meanwhile, the the Bohol Panglao International Airport is scheduled for inauguration on November 22, 2018.
NAIA Rehabilitation
The Ninoy Aquino International Airport is also in line for rehabilitation. The four-year project involves improvements and expansion of terminals, as well as the construction of additional runways, taxiways, passenger terminals and other support infrastructure.
This P101 Billion upgrade is seen to benefit 65 million passengers per year, and will be funded through unsolicited proposal, subject to Swiss challenge.
Notably, through this administration’s efforts, NAIA, the country’s main international airport, has risen from being dubbed as one of the world’s worst airports into the 10th most-improved airport in the world. (DBM).
At least 20 cities in India will need a second airport by 2030, the initial findings of a study by the civil aviation ministry has revealed, two officers directly involved in the exercise said on condition of anonymity.
Mumbai, Delhi, Goa, Visakhapatnam, Jaipur, Pune, Ahmadabad, Rajkot, Patna, Kolkata and Bangalore are among cities that will need a second airport by 2030. By 2035, more cities will join this list. The study is still work-in-progress and will also calculate by when each airport will reach its capacity.
Once it is completed, the ministry will write to respective state governments, sharing the information and asking them to identify land for a new airport at least five years before the airport reaches its capacity.
India’s airports currently handle 183.90 million passengers a year, according to the 2017-18 data released by aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation. The number has grown in recent years. It was 158.43 million in 2016-17 and 134.98 million in 2015-16.
This year, it is expected to cross 200 million. Some of the bigger airports are already operating in excess of their capacity. For instance, the Delhi airport handled 63.5 million passengers in 2017, and is expected to reach 70 million this year and will start operating beyond its capacity. It is also among the busiest airports worldwide, according to Airports Council International (ACI).
For the first time, the Delhi airport breached the 60 million-mark in 2017, making it to the list of the world’s top 20 busiest airports. The Indira Gandhi International Airport also became the seventh busiest in Asia, ahead of Seoul, Singapore and Bangkok.
«The study should be completed by the end of this year, and the aim is to map the saturation point,» said one of the two officials mentioned in the first instance, a senior official at Airports Authority India (AAI), which is conducting the study.
«Some airports are already operating beyond the capacity but still have scope for expansion. But most of us agree that expansion is not matched with the growth in aviation sector, which is why we are observing congestion at airports. We do not want this when we are aspiring for one billion trips in next 15 years, up from around 200 million (trips a year) now,» the AAI official said.
The issue isn’t just passengers but also runways, flights, and parking slots for aircraft. The number of aircraft with scheduled airlines in India is 620 as on July 31, 2018, up from 448 in March 2016. India’s 17 scheduled airlines operated 9.22 lakh flights in 2017-18, up from 8.1 lakh from previous year. International aircraft movement was 3.79 lakh in 2017-18 against 3.45 lakh in 2016-17.
«When we are looking at saturation point, we are not only looking at terminal capacity. At some places we might not have space for another runway, while terminals can be expanded. But if the airport can’t handle more flights, there is no point in expanding the terminal. The study will reflect that and will also
point out the projected traffic so that expansion can be planned accordingly,» said the second person cited in the first instance, who also works for AAI.
In May, Hindustan Times had reported that at least 25 of the 50 busiest airports in India are already operating beyond their capacity, while almost all the others will reach optimal capacity in 2018-19.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on May 2 approved investments in expansion and upgradation of integrated terminals in Chennai, Guwahati and Lucknow by AAI at a cost of Rs 2,467 crore, Rs 1,232 crore and Rs 1,383 crore, respectively.
Increasing capacity requires both development of greenfield airports and expansion of existing airports; the plan is to use AAI and also involve private firms.
AAI, which runs all the non-private civilian airports in the country, is in the process of implementing plans to create additional capacity in airports in Agartala, Patna, Srinagar, Pune, Trichy, Vijayawada, Port Blair, Jaipur, Mangalore, Dehradun, Jabalpur, Kolhapur, Goa, Rupsi, Leh, Calicut, Imphal, Varanasi and Bhubaneswar with a capital expenditure of Rs 20,178 crore over the next four to five years.
The private firms that run the Delhi, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad airports are also working on expansion plans that will require an investment of Rs 25,000 crore over the next five years.
«Airports are not just a shiny terminal building; airside is equally important… capacity of runway and taxiway also need to be expanded. More holistic action plans need to be developed for the modernisation of airports. AAI along, with private developers, should form a joint action group to come up with a modernisation plan,» said Mark Martin, founder and CEO of Dubai-based Martin Consulting
The capital on Friday took local and international media on a tour of the Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is expected to start operating in the middle of next year.
Located on the border of Beijing and Langfang, Hebei province, the new airport, which will be Beijing’s second international airport and is positioned to be a large international hub, is now undergoing interior decoration, according to Zhang Xiaofeng, deputy manager of the terminal construction department.
He said the decoration will be completed by the end of this year and the airport is planned to open in 2019.
The project, which costs 80 billion ($11.5 billion), is 46 kilometers from Tian’anmen Square, 26 km from downtown Langfang in Hebei, 55 km from Xiongan New Area, and 67 km from the existing Beijing Capital International Airport, and is expected to serve as the airport hub for North China.
With four runways and a 700,000 square meter terminal area, the airport is expected to be the world’s largest airport upon completion.
The first phase of the airport project is designed for a target of 72 million passengers, 20 million metric tons of cargo and mail, and 620,000 aircraft movements in 2025, with plans to handle 100 million passengers in the long term.
«We have adopted natural light in the terminal design as much as possible and lots of technological innovation in the construction of the integrated transportation,» said Zhang Ru, representative of the project headquarters.
She said the project includes five vertical and two horizontal integrated transportation networks, which will combine highway, intercity railway, high-speed railway and subways with the airport as the center.
Combined with the construction of the Daxing airport, China has planned an airport economic zone. In future, the nation’s international communication center area, aviation technology innovation leading area, coordinated development demonstration area of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei will be formed with the Daxing airport at its core.
In line with the administration’s ambitious Build Build Build program, 28 airport projects for construction/rehabilitation/ upgrade are listed in the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) priority agenda. Of the 28, three international airport projects – Lal-Lo, Puerto Prinsesa, and Mactan-Cebu – and four domestic airport projects – Tuguegarao, Calbayog, Ozamis, and Naga – have already been finished.
