CEBU CITY, May 22 (PNA) — The Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) will give incentives of up to 100 percent discount in fees to airlines to attract more flight routes.
Airline operators will get 100 percent discount on landing and parking fees for new international and local routes to and from Cebu.
Existing flight routes, meanwhile, will get 50 percent discount.
Under Republic Act 6958 or the MCIAA Charter, the Airline Incentive Plan for Landing and Take-off Fees aims to encourage, promote and develop international and domestic air traffic to help the region become a center of trade and tourism.
“The MCIA Authority is in charge of improving and promoting new traffic routes to Visayas and Mindanao. It is our job and objectives to increase flights to and from Mactan airport,” said MCIAA general manager Engineer Nigel Paul Villarete.
Villarete said the Board of Directors formulated the plan to level up the airport’s marketing of its air traffic growth.
He cited different airports in the world that had welcomed the idea of fee incentives such as the Changi Airport in Singapore, the Hong Kong International Airport, Incheon International Airport in South Korea, including airports in Atlanta and Northwest Florida in the United States.
“We are in a globally competitive area,” Villarete said.
Villarete said they are finding ways and means to alleviate the congestion in the airport.
He said there are two kinds of congestion, namely, congestion of terminal services and runway congestion, as he pointed out that the MCIAA is operating “above capacity.”
Villarete said the MCIAA had coordinated with the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines for introducing a second runway in the airport to address airport congestion.
“We are coordinating with CAAP to get technical requirements in developing new runway. Hopefully we are targeting a long-term proposition we hope to attain by 2020,” Villarete said. (PNA)