The Philippine Government through its Department of Transportation (DoTR) has received the new draft of concession agreement submitted by the consortium of companies that seek to rehabilitate the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). 

The NAIA consortium, composed of Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc.; AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp.; Alliance Global Group, Inc.; Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp.; Filinvest Development Corp.; JG Summit Holdings, Inc.; and Metro Pacific Investments Corp., is proposing to rehabilitate and expand the airport for 15-year concession period at PHP102 billion (US$1.94 billion). The expansion could increase the annual passenger traffic to 47 million in two years and 65 million in four years from the current 30.5 million. NAIA consortium´s technical partner is Singapore’s Changi Airports International.

The negotiations on the NAIA rehabilitation started after the consortium was nominated original proponent status in September. The deadline for the submission of the draft proposal was assigned to April 30. 

The draft agreement will be assessed by DoTR and will be submitted to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) for further evaluation. Once approved by the NEDA Investment Coordination Committee and the NEDA Board, a Swiss challenge would be conducted. Under the Swiss challenge, other companies will be invited to submit competing proposals, which the NAIA consortium will then have the chance to match.

The consortium initially wanted to start the rehabilitation before the end of 2019. 

The operator of the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) has expressed the possibility of submitting a bid to challenge the unsolicited proposal for the upgrade and operation of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). The consortium of Megawide and India’s GMR Infrastructure has won the concession contract of MCIA in 2014 under a 25-year public-private partnership deal.

Last year Megawide - GMR Infrastructure received the PHP155 billion (US$3 billion) offer to develop and operate NAIA, but the offer was set aside because NAIA was the first to submit the proposal.

The CEO of Megawide Construction Corp Edgar Saavedra said - “We will look at it, but it depends on the terms.” He said they were waiting for the final terms of reference.