San Miguel Corp. and India’s GMR Group plan to bid for the P171-billion contract to rehabilitate, optimize and maintain the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the Department of Transportation said Thursday.
Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said SMC and GMR bought bid documents for the NAIA rehabilitation project.
San Miguel Aerocity Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of San Miguel Holdings Corp., the infrastructure arm of SMC, is building the P734-billion New Manila International Airport in Bulacan, while India’s GMR is the largest private airport operator in Asia handling passengers in excess of 100 million annually and a partner of Megawide Corp. for the Mactan Cebu International Airport.
Cosette Canilao, president and chief executive of Aboitiz InfraCapital Inc., earlier said the Manila International Airport Consortium also purchased bid documents for the NAIA project.
The other members of the MIAC are AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp., Alliance Global-Infracorp Development Inc., Filinvest Development Corp. and JG Summit Infrastructure Holdings Corp.
The DOTr and the Manila International Airport Authority on Aug. 23 began inviting interested parties to participate in a single-stage competitive bidding process for a rehabilitate-operate-expand-transfer modality, in accordance with the Build-Operate-and-Transfer Law and its revised 2022 implementing rules and regulations.
Based on the invitation to bid, the concession agreement and certain other documents that provide background information on the project will be made available to prospective bidders through a virtual data room upon payment of a participation fee of P2.75 million or $50,000.
The issuance of the draft concession agreement is set on Sept. 8, while the pre-bid conference will be on Sept. 22. The bid submission is scheduled on Dec. 27, 2023.
The DOTr said the bidder should have a net worth of at least P20 billion and would be required to post bid security of P1.71 billion standby letter of credit as part of its bid proposal.
“If the bidder is a consortium and any consortium member or such consortium members’ affiliates is an airline-related entity, then such consortium member cannot own or be proposed to own more than 33 percent interest in such consortium,” the agency said.
It said the bidder should have been an owner or concessionaire of an airport for which capital costs incurred was at least P10 billion and may have owned or has been the concessionaire for the airport for less than 10 years within the eligible period.
It said for the O&M experience, the bidder should have expertise and experience in having undertaken the operation and maintenance of an international airport for at least three consecutive calendar years anytime within the eligible period and handled an annual passenger throughput of 25 million passengers per annum, including 10 million passengers.
The DOTr and the MIAAl serve as co-grantors for the project, which would have a 15-year concession and an option for a 10-year extension.
The agencies expect to award the contract by end-2023. The project aims to address longstanding issues at NAIA such as the inadequate capacity of passenger terminal buildings and restricted aircraft movement.
It also intends to increase the annual airport capacity from 35 million to at least 62 million passengers and raise air traffic movement from 40 to 48 per hour.
The project is also expected to improve the overall passenger experience and service quality to prevent long queues, lengthy waiting times and other passenger inconveniences.