The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and Takenaka Corp. will sign the $45-million deal on the upgrade and rehabilitation of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA 3) to make the facility fully operational this year.

“We are handling the certification of the availability of the fund. Takenaka is willing to proceed, we just need to formalize things. Hopefully we could sign it this week, and within the month we could then proceed and give the green light for them, [to complete and upgrade the facilities and systems in NAIA 3],” said Transportation and Communications Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya on Tuesday.

DOTC and Takenaka Corp. signed recently a memorandum of understanding, considered to be the
first legal step to make the NAIA 3 fully operational.

23 airport systems
Covered by the MOU is the “Civil Works Agreement Estimate of 23 Systems,” which covers the delivery of 23 airport systems critical to make NAIA 3 fully operational.

 The 23 airport systems include baggage handling and reconciliation system, flight information display system, building management system, local area network, fire alarm and protection system, and passenger loading bridges.

 Takenaka was the original contractor commissioned by Philippine International Air Terminals Co. to build the NAIA 3 in 1998.

 However, construction at the terminal was halted in 2002 after allegations of anomalies cropped up.
 Once completed, the 182,500-square-meter terminal would have the capacity to service up to 33,000 passengers daily at a peak or 6,000 passengers per hour.

 It will also have 34 air bridges and 20 contact gates, allowing it to service 28 airplanes simultaneously. Some of the operations of NAIA Terminal 1 will be transferred to Terminal 3 once the 23 systems are delivered.

 This will result in the decongestion of passenger traffic in Terminal 1 for a more convenient and efficient air transport system.

 “They [Takenaka Corp.] saying liberally they could finish the commissioning and rehabilitating in the NAIA 3 within the year, the good benchmark we hope we get is that 100 percent of Terminal 3 happens to be operating within the end of the year,” Abaya said.

 Takenaka is among the so-called ‘Big Five’ contractors in Japan.

 The family enterprise has built some of the most important buildings in Japan, such as the Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Dome, Fukuoka Dome and the Kobe Meriken Park Oriental Hotel, among others.

These airport development projects are in support of the huge potential of tourism in the country’s economy, and in the more important goal of creating jobs and livelihood opportunities.

 The country’s tourism sector continues to boom. From January to May of last year alone, visitor arrivals rose almost 14 percent to more than 1.8 million from the 1.6 million arrivals for the same period in 2011.

 In 2011, a record of 3.7 million foreign tourists visited the country, and all indications show that the country is on its way to achieving the projected 4.6 million tourist arrivals in 2012.