Airlines doubt NAIA-3 terminal to open this year

International airlines operating at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport will not be able to relocate to the controversial NAIA Terminal 3 within the year.

Leoncio Nakpil II, Airline Operators Council (AOC) chairman, said the management of international airlines has not earmarked funds for the transfer in their budget for 2005.

"We cannot transfer at NAIA 3 because we do not have a budget for it," he said. "We have removed a budget for it from our 2005 budget. We can put it in our budget for next year."

Nakpil said the decision was made due to the government’s failure to open the mothballed terminal, despite the announcement of Manila International Airport Authority general manager Alfonso Cusi that it would be opened within the year.

"They could open it, of course," he said. "But without us."

The MIAA could open NAIA 3, but "only to the extent of turning on the computer and electro-mechanical systems," he added.

Nakpil said MIAA has failed to produce a lease contract agreement (LCA) to allow international airlines to start earnest efforts to transfer to NAIA 3 and build their new counters and office spaces.

"We still don’t have a contract," he said. "It will be recalled that in lieu of the LCA, MIAA had recently given the international airlines (a) separate memorandum of understanding that will serve as an LCA."

Nakpil said Philippine Airlines has also not yet decided on whether it will transfer to the NAIA 3.

PAL’s agreement to transfer to NAIA 3 was one of the AOC’s basic requirements before it would earnestly begin transferring to the new terminal, he added.

The MIAA had been prohibited from entering into an LCA with the airlines by the Office of the Solicitor General since this would constitute MIAA exercising ownership rights over the NAIA 3.

It had been prohibited by the courts to do so, while the government’s expropriation proceedings were still being discussed. — Rainier Allan Ronda