A Turkish conglomerate bought bid documents for the P171-billion contract to rehabilitate, optimize and maintain the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, bringing to eight the prospective bidders for the project, the Department of Transportation said Monday.
“So far, eight prospective bidders have expressed interest to operate and maintain NIAA,” Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista told the participants of the 2023 Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines economic forum.
He identified the latest prospective bidder as Turkey’s Limak Group of Companies.
Limak has interests in airport construction, tourism, cement, energy and infrastructure. The company built and operates Kosovo Pristina International Airport and LimakPort Iskendrun.
Other groups that earlier bought bid documents were San Miguel Corp., India’s GMR Group, Manila International Airport Consortium, Spark 888 Management Inc., Asian Airport Consortium and Cengiz Insaat Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S.
“We are expecting that they will be able to meet the bid submission deadline on Dec. 27,” Bautista said.
The DOTr expects to award the contract by first quarter of 2024 and achieve financial closure by second quarter.
The department and the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) serve as co-grantors for the project, which would have a 15-year concession and an option for a 10-year extension.
The NAIA project involves capital investment to improve the airport’s facilities to comply with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and other internationally-accepted standards.
This means modernizing the terminals, optimizing and enhancing the capacity of the airport to 62 million passengers a year, enhancing asset quality and passenger experience, improving the information and technology systems infrastructure and ensuring reliable operations over the period of the concession.
The concessionaire will be responsible for both landside and airside operations of the NAIA.
It will be required to undertake works to enhance the compliance, safety and security of the airport, optimize and boost airport capacity to cater to the increasing air traffic in accordance with objective parameters to be provided in detail in the concession agreement.