ILOILO CITY – The proposed expansion of the Iloilo Airport will cost approximately P14.7 billion.
Iloilo Gov. Arthur “Toto” Defensor Jr. disclosed this, citing data from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), an attached agency of the Department of Transportation (DOTr), during a recent meeting in Manila.
THE Iloilo Airport (Tara Yap)
Based on CAAP data, the proposed rehabilitation will undergo a contract-add-and-operate (CAO) scheme.
As per the Public-Private Partnership Center of the Philippines, the CAO scheme gives the private sector the capacity to “add to an existing facility and operate expanded project for an agreed franchise period.”
The CAO scheme gives the government the authority to “collect rental payment under agreed terms and schedule while regaining control at the end of lease term.”
An unsolicited proposal by Prime Asset Ventures Inc. (PAVI), a holding company owned by former Senate President Manuel B. Villar Jr., was submitted in 2019. In 2023, Aboitiz InfraCapital Inc. also submitted an unsolicited proposal.
The airport that straddles the towns of Santa Barbara and Cabatuan opened in 2007 when the old airport in Iloilo City was closed.
When it was built, the airport was designed to cater to 1.2 million passengers per year. The airport was serving double its capacity even before the pandemic in 2020.
Passengers have been complaining of various problems for the past two years, including poor airconditioning as well as non-working elevators and escalators.