SEN. Grace Poe, who heads the franchise-granting Senate Committee on Public Services, has backed the transfer of domestic flights to Ninoy Aquino International Airport 2 (NAIA2).
“We support the move to maximize the capacity of our airports and bring better comfort to our travellers,” said Poe.
In a statement, the senator stressed that both airport officials and airlines should “closely coordinate to ensure a seamless transition that will not disrupt flights, cause delays and inconvenience passengers.”
Poe said intensified information dissemination and timely assistance should be available to the public, as she lamented that, “unfortunate incidents and mishaps especially at NAIA in the recent past have dealt our airports a black eye.”
“We expect the new terminal assignments can be a genuine showcase of an improved, more efficient airport experience for travellers,” she stressed.
She reminded authorities that Naia Terminal 2, also known as the Centennial Terminal, will be catering fully to domestic flights of Philippine Airlines (PAL) and Philippines Air Asia before yearend. Air Asia has announced the move to Naia-2 in July, while PAL is still negotiating certain terms of the transfer with respect to charges, with MIAA.
Cebu Pacific Airways’ domestic flights will remain at Naia-3, and Naia-4.
Earlier, MIAA general manager Cesar Chiong explained that the “Terminal 2 is not [large] enough to handle all domestic flights right now, but once we are able to construct the annex to Terminal 2, Cebu Pacific’s domestic flights can be transferred there.”
He added that Naia-2, which is currently occupied solely by PAL for its domestic and international flights, can accommodate up to nine million passengers a year.
The 75,000 square-meter Naia-2 was originally designed for domestic passengers, but was revised to accommodate international flights as well.
