After lowering it, government set to hike airport fee

Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas

After lowering it to P550 on February 1, the government is considering bringing the airport terminal fee paid by outbound passengers at the country’s main gateway back up to P750 to finance badly needed improvements in airport facilities.

Transport Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II said a P200 hike in terminal fees for international passengers was necessary to improve the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) terminals, which have been repeatedly cited in international polls as among the worst in the world.

“Terminal fees will have to go back up to P750 per passenger. That’s being processed right now,” Roxas told a press conference on Monday, but declined to give a specific schedule for the increase.

The terminal fee per passenger at Naia was reduced to P550 on February 1 this year from P750. The fee was raised to P750 in 2007 to fund the acquisition of state-of-the-art security equipment at the airport terminals.

“That was a temporary increase and the Miaa (Manila International Airport Authority) only had the authority for that until last February,” Roxas said.

Roxas said the higher fee would help fund the rehabilitation of the three-decade-old Naia Terminal 1, as well as the additional work needed to Terminal 3 fully operational.

Misconception

Roxas explained that other airports around the world also charged terminal fees contrary to the misconception that only the Philippines was one of the few places in the world where this was the practice.

“The difference is that with other countries, terminal fees are included in their ticket prices… that’s why it’s seamless,” he said.

“The reason plane ticket prices are exclusive of terminal fees here in the Philippines is because our airlines don’t want it,” Roxas said.

Refusal

He said airlines that operate in the Philippines had refused to collect terminal fees on the government’s behalf due to the country’s complicated system of exemptions covering senior citizens and overseas Filipino workers, among other reasons.

He said the Miaa was currently studying a system that would force airlines to collect fees and remit these to the government. Under the system being studied, exempted passengers would get a refund by mail.

Roxas said projects that would be funded by the hike in fees are the ongoing rehabilitation of Terminal 1 and the work to fully operationalize Terminal 3, which is running at half capacity.

Roxas said he was scheduled to fly to Japan later this week to complete negotiations with Takenaka Corp., Terminal 3’s original contractor, for the delivery of unfinished work to the facility.

These deliverables include the facility’s master clock, escalators, fire alarms and flight information systems.

Terminal 3 was expropriated by the government after its original concessionaire Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco) was declared a mere “dummy” company for its German partner Fraport AG by the Supreme Court, before Takenaka could finish its work.

Roxas said the government was close to agreeing on a price for the unfinished work with Takenaka.