Press Release
January 26, 2007

New airport will spur economic growth
in the Visayas, Drilon says

ILOILO CITY-- Opening in April this year, the new airport will provide for a new gateway to the Visayas for air travelers not only in the Philippines, but worldwide. It will offer opportunities for businesses, employment and economic growth to the whole of Region 6.

These are primary benefits envisioned by Sen. Franklin M. Drilon with the completion and operation of a world-class airport that is compliant with international standards in his home province of Iloilo. Drilon is in Iloilo today leading the topping ceremony of the new airport, which coincided with the start of the Dinagyang Festival in the province.

"This infrastructure project serves as a gateway that welcomes large-scale business transactions and visitors into the region while providing access to the citizens and businesses in Iloilo to the larger economy," Drilon, who is also president of the Liberal Party, said.

As air transportation system play an important role in promoting national and regional socio-economic activities, Drilon hailed the development of the new airport as the springboard for economic growth in the provinces of Iloilo, Antique, Aklan, Capiz, Guimaras and Negros Occidental.

According to a report of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC), air traffic demand forecast has been carried out and revealed that "the annual passenger movement between Iloilo and Manila is expected to exceed 800,000 in the year 2010, and wide-bodied jet aircraft such as A330 is very much likely to be operated."

"This will meet the needs of the traveling public for generations to come," Drilon said.

The new airport equipped with state of the art facilities will cater to the increasing number of air passenger and cargo traffic in Iloilo and its influence areas to boost economic development of the Visayas regions, the latest DOTC project status report said.

Construction of the New Iloilo Airport started in 2004 and will be completed by March 18 this year. The three-story passenger terminal is about 12,000 sq. meter in floor area. The airport can accommodate six aircrafts simultaneously parking at a time.

DOTC claims that the new airport is the first to have the latest technology belonging to Category F as determined by the International Civil Aviation (ICA) Organization. This means that the airport is accredited as a qualifier for international standards.

The airport complex has a six-hectare regulating pod, bigger than the Burnham Park in Baguio, that can hold even a year's continuous downpour, hence not flood the airport runway.

Drilon, a native of Iloilo, played a lead role in the completion of the P8.7 billion Iloilo airport project in the past eight years. He was part of the steering committee which oversees the project implementation. In November 1998, then President Joseph Estrada issued a memorandum creating the Iloilo Airport Coordinating Committee, with Drilon as adviser.

The airport is developed in a 188-hectare area in Sta. Barbara-Cabatuan, 19 kilometers north of Iloilo City.

News Latest News Feed