GMR Megawide keen on Davao airport upgrade
DAVAO CITY — GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC), operator of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA), is eyeing to take part in the planned upgrade of the Davao International Airport (DIA), which has been put on hold last year as government considers funding other than through the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.
“As partners, Megawide Corporation and GMR are actively seeking to partner with the government on development of airport projects, including Davao,” GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. Chief Executive Advisor Andrew Acquaah-Harrison told BusinessWorld.
GMCAC is a consortium between Megawide Construction Corp. and Bangalore-based GMR Infrastructure Ltd. It also recently won the contract for the P9.36-billion construction of a new Clark International Airport terminal.
“We are very interested in participating in such projects as we believe we bring significant expertise that will support the government in delivering its infrastructure development plan,” said Mr. Harrison, who was in town yesterday to explore more Cebu-Davao links as part of the company’s push for Mactan airport as an international hub.
Under the original PPP contract for the DIA, also known as the Francisco Bangoy International Airport, the project had a price tag of P40.57billion, covering development, operations, and maintenance.
The Duterte administration is considering a “hybrid” PPP scheme for DIA wherein the infrastructure development could be funded through official development assistance or national funds, and the operations and maintenance awarded to a private firm.
Megawide Construction Corp. was among the pre-qualified bidders for the DIA PPP proposal.
In the meantime, Mr. Harrison said the company’s “sales mission” to Davao was intended to assess the demand in the city and the rest of Mindanao as well as the potential market for international passengers from DIA via Cebu.
“Davao is a very important city because it ( has) the third busiest airport in the Philippines… So it is not a question whether there is a market here, it’s just a question whether that market will fly to Cebu or not,” Mr. Harrison said.
Among those in attendance during the event were representatives of airlines such as Air Swift, Cebu Pacific, Philippines Airlines, Air Asia Philippines, China Eastern, Emirates, and Eva Air.
With the opening of the MCIA Terminal 2 in June this year and the launch of new flights from and to Cebu, GMCAC is projecting a traffic of 11.5 million passengers this year, about 12% higher than in 2017.
“Today we were handling 10 million passengers and we believe that we will grow to about 11 million and a half passengers within the next year and we see a sizeable part of that demand from the Visayas and Mindanao region,” Mr. Harrison said.