Up, up and away for Clark

For sometime now, we’ve heard from peripatetic friends how the former Clark Airbase has been on a roll as far as aviation and leisure developments go. Not only has the DMIA or Diosdado Macapagal International Airport attracted international budget airlines and given passengers a chance to fly to Southeast Asian destinations at much lower rates, but this has also led to more air talks with a host of countries. To think that doubters continue to question the viability of yet another gateway airport, especially after NAIA-3 was opened recently.

Naysayers also ask if there can be anything at all for tourists other than lahar sites in the area, especially since Central Luzon is known to be flat and inland, with only Subic Bay some distance away promising some water sports recreation.

We really should embark more often as tourists in our own country, to get up to speed with the latest travel-related facilities.

Oh, yes, northbound commuters have sung praises for the upgraded North Expressway, and those who’ve tried out the Clark-Subic road have also come away impressed. But mostly we hear only of the Mimosa and Fontana leisure havens, which offer golf and casinos as primary attractions. 

Last weekend, the conduct of air talks with Malaysia, among nine countries for these past months alone, gave us reason to stay overnight at Clark, perchance to sample “life after the bases.” And we came away feeling good about its sunrise status as a growing hub for both aviation and recreation. 

Victor Jose I. Luciano, President and CEO of Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC) under the Office of the President, can’t help but wax bullish on Clark’s future. His office, which supervises DMIA, has been at the forefront of seeing initiatives translate into more than just brownie points for the airport as well as the surrounding community.

While he admits that most airline carriers already used to NAIA’s services and urban location want to avoid dual operations, what he’s selling happens to enjoy particular benefits that may obviate the perceived disadvantages, such as the 80-kilometer drive from Metro Manila.

“The biggest challenge is to get the major carriers to fly to Clark,” he acknowledges. “But the DMIA can indeed become a premier gateway airport, especially since it’s four times the size of NAIA, and more importantly, it has two runways, with capacity for four, while NAIA makes do with one, so that fuel costs are involved when there’s heavy traffic and an incoming aircraft has to hover about for as much as half-an-hour before it can land.”

“Chichos” Luciano also cites the experience of cities like Washington, New York and London, which are served by two gateway airports. He recalls that since there was already a John Foster Dulles airport, Washingtonians thought the new Ronald Reagan airport would just be a white elephant. But like Heathrow and Gatwick in the UK, those twin airports now complement one another.

Maybe it’s all about the principle of “If you build it, they will come.” Chichos shares his brand of bullishness over his field of dreams.  

“Clark has its own niche market, and its own catchment area. Northern Metro Manila is but an hour away. Then there are all the potential travelers from Regions 1, 2 and 3. There’s only room for growth even as a “secondary” airport. Budget airlines are always looking for airports with cheaper charges. That’s how they manage to cut down fares.”

Indeed, an increasing number of passengers now fly from Clark to neighboring destinations via budget carriers. They can take the Philtranco bus to the DMIA and back for a P300 fare, with SM Megamall as a pick-up point. There’s also the Partas bus line that travels north from Cubao, and brand-new, air-conditioned Genesis buses with TV and DVD that ply the Plaza Lawton-or-Cubao-to-Clark route.

The CIAC CEO knows whereof he speaks, since his past managerial experience was in aviation. And this has served his new post well in more ways than one. He used to head Asiana Airlines, South Korea’s second carrier, known as a “legacy carrier,” which was then flying to Manila.

As the millennium turned, he was asked by a friend who headed NAIA to help in getting the planned DMIA off the ground, at a time when the joke was that only birds flew to and from the Clark airport taken over by the BCDA or Bases Conversion Development Authority. 

Being favored as the UPS Inter-Asia hub was its first coup, after which Luciano may be said to have called in his marks at Asiana, convincing the airline to join SEAIR and Asian Spirit in utilizing Clark.

Came the SARS scare and Asiana had to defer its planned first flight in May 2003 to October that same year. The twice-a-week charter flights brought in some 7,000 passengers on the first year. With the subsequent entry of budget carriers such as Tiger Airways, and Asiana now flying in 10 times weekly, the passenger load for 2008 has risen dramatically to 700,000, increasing a thousand-fold in only five years.

That success rate may be attributed largely to the interest manifested by South Koreans in developing communities for themselves in and around Clark. Starting on June 1, 2009, Asiana launches twice-daily flights from Inchon to Clark and back. 

Asiana’s headman at the DMIA, Hyoung Joo Choi, has only savored his new posting for 10 months, but already he was named two months ago as the airline’s Best Employee, out of a workforce of 8,000.  

The acknowledged pillar of the 15,000-strong Korean community in Clark and environs, Joshua Cho, first visited in 1997 and saw all the opportunities. He opened the restaurant Korea House, then brought his family over in 1999. “The Philippines is the closest tropical county that’s English-speaking,” he says succinctly by way of explaining the upsurge in his countrymen’s presence. The way Koreans have obsessed over bear-hugging the English language, Mr. Cho needs no further reason, albeit he offers a lot more.

“Around $10 billion is spent by South Koreans for our children’s education in North America,” he says. “Here, when my kids completed high school in Angeles, they went to De La Salle for college. When they returned to Seoul for an English-language competition, they bested the students who had come from the USA and Canada.”

Driving the point home, Mr. Cho adds: “To think that in Seoul, parents spend about $4,000 a month for a child’s education. Here it only involves one-fourth of that at most. And the parents can visit their kids regularly, spend a long weekend, play golf, get much cheaper and better services in a barbershop, have a sauna and massage, all that.” 

He also mentions that there’s no flying school in South Korea, because of the DMZ. But his countrymen can take up flying in Clark, log 40 hours, and acquire a PPL or Private Pilot’s License.

The strong Korean presence is easily seen all over Clark and Dau. Off Clark’s Friendship Gate, a large marker announces Koreatown: a wide avenue almost entirely taken up by Korean stores, bars and restos. There’s a KCC or Korean Country Club in upscale Fontana, which had an additional 18-hole golf course contributed by Asiana. The gated subdivision Carmenville has 50 percent Korean occupancy.

The spanking new Lohas Hotel cum New Well-Being Spa was put up by Koreans and features a humongous swimming pool and Korean-style sauna, an ice room, and an array of massage services. It’s not exclusively for Korean visitors, of course.

American military personnel, some in fatigues for a Balikatan exercise, were checking in when we conducted an inspection tour. It was the same scene where we stayed, the spic-and-span Hotel Vida with its elegant, capacious lobby and restos, gardens, and inviting free-form pool with water slides.

Clark has definitely turned international. Each year, on October 25, a Pilgrimage for Peace is conducted by Japanese visitors who come with Buddhist monks to lead the prayers at Lily Hill — where a dozen tunnels built by Japanese soldiers promise to become a future attraction.

Noemi B. Garcia, manager of the Tourism & Promotions office of Clark Development Corporation, says that a son et lumiere museum is being planned for that site. What’s called the Kamikaze West Airfield in Clark has three additional tunnels.

From Feb. 12-15, the tradition that’s been the Hot Air Balloon festival will be revived.

A hot spring site is accessible via a 30-minute four-wheel drive uphill. Water parks, including Fontana’s, attract families. Moneyed clans can rent out a two-story, five-room Fontana pool villa for P30K a night. Holiday Inn at Mimosa has three-story pool villas, while the rest of the Mimosa complex offers bungalows amidst well-kept greens under the shade of old acacias, thanks to the Yanks’ sense of order, maintenance and preservation. 

“We don’t want to be seen as just a transit point,” Mr. Luciano stresses. “The engine of growth should always be the private sector.” 

He says there’s another side to Clark: manufacturing. Already it’s been hosting Texas Instruments, Dell and Nike. The employment generated fits in with the recreation component. Meanwhile, incoming flights remain on the upside, with so-called “casino” flights from Macau. Next year, a new carrier Spirit of Manila, will ply the Clark-Taiwan route, with Johore Bahru in Malaysia waiting in the wings.  

That’s Chichos Luciano’s business and his specialization — attracting players, investors, stakeholders.

Today, November 9, Cebu Pacific launches its own hub with a Clark-Cebu inaugural flight. Eventually it goes international from the DMIA.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was expected to drop in on Nov. 6 for the groundbreaking of the maintenance center for repair and overhaul of heavy aircraft equipment — which fulfills her program to turn DMIA and Clark into an aviation complex.

Singapore Airlines, the largest in Asia, has already committed to have its aircraft serviced in Clark as its second base. KGL Company of Kuwait has signed on to develop the logistics for establishing cargo bays, warehouses and the like. With air agreements successfully concluded with nine countries in 2008 alone — even with seemingly improbable negotiators such as The Nertherlands, Finland and Russia — the vision of the Clark Economic Zone as a hub for spiraling growth is taking off — up, up and away — and landing back on solid ground.