New international links eyed at Mactan airport

Mactan Cebu International Airport (Source: WEB)

BY THE first quarter of next year, at least three new direct services to the Middle East, United States and Europe will start operating at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport.

Andrew Acquaah Harrison, chief executive adviser of GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport, Inc., said discussions with several other airlines for additional services at the Mactan airport are also under way. He declined to reveal the names of the airlines.

Harrison said the airport has been doing relatively well so far, with at least an 11 percent growth in business. This has helped them partially recover from the 21 percent decline in traffic at the airport in 2014.

“We are heading towards recovering that loss,” Harrison said during the groundbreaking ceremonies for the second passenger terminal building at the airport.

In the first quarter of this year, airport statistics posted on its website showed domestic incoming and outgoing flights went down 11 percent to 11,455 as of March compared to 12,884 in the first three months of last year.

Total international flights, both incoming and outgoing, slipped 3 percent to 3,291 from January  to March this year compared to 3,405 in the same period last year.

GMR-Megawide took over the operations of the Mactan airport terminal in November last year, about six months after it signed a 25-year concession agreement with the government to manage, renovate and expand the facility.

The new terminal, undertaken through public-private partnership, is estimated to cost P17.52 billion on top of the P14.4 billion premium that the consortium paid up front for the right to undertake the project. It will increase capacity to 12 million from the current 4.5 million passengers a year.

Meanwhile, Rockwell Collins’ ARINC airport solutions are being used to improve the passengers’ travel experiences at the Mactan airport.

The airport is currently using ARINC vMUSE™ common-use passenger processing system (CUPPS) as well as ARINC SelfServ™ common-use self-service (CUSS) kiosks. It will soon implement the ARINC AirVue™ Flight Information Display System (FIDS), AirDB 7™, the latest generation ARINC Airport Operational Database (AODB) system and baggage messaging server ARINC BagLink™.

As part of the deployment, Rockwell Collins has teamed up with Gunnebo AB to streamline the entire check-in process by implementing ARINC™ VeriPax on Gunnebo Security Group automated gates. The gates will validate passenger flight details, enhancing security at the airport.

“Rockwell Collins was able to seamlessly migrate our systems from the previous vendor to ARINC vMUSE in record time, providing our airport with a superior passenger processing system without disrupting our travelers,” Harrison said in a statement.

“Tourism is one of the major drivers of the Philippines’ economy, so ensuring that travelers have a positive experience is critically important,” said Heament John Kurian, managing director, IMS Asia Pacific for Rockwell Collins, in the same statement.

Rockwell Collins’ airport systems management organization, ARINC Managed Services, is responsible for the on-site maintenance and support of all the systems. /PR