The Department of Transportation on Friday awarded to the San Miguel Group the P171 billion contract to rehabilitate, operate and maintain the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), the country’s main international gateway.
“We have issued the notice of award today, 16 February, to San Miguel,” Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista told reporters in a briefing.
The SMC SAP Company Consortium, led by San Miguel Holdings Corp., RMM Asian Logistics Inc., RLW Aviation Development Inc. and Incheon International Airport Corp., offered a highest bid of 82.16 percent revenue share to the government at the opening of financial proposals for the NAIA project.
Under the terms of reference, the percentage revenue share to the government formed the bedrock for the auction, meaning the higher proposed revenue share to the government the better.
The San Miguel Group as winning bidder will also pay P30 billion upfront cost plus an annual annuity of P2 billion to the government.
Bidders that also submitted financial bids were the Manila International Airport Consortium composed of Aboitiz InfraCapital, Ayala’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., Alliance Global-Infracorp, Filinvest and JG Summit Holdings, and GMR Airports International B.V., Cavitex Holdings, Inc. and House of Investments, Inc. of GMR Airports Consortium.
Asian Airport Consortium was disqualified to join the bidding process by the Pre-qualifications, Bids and Awards Committee (PBAC) because it failed to comply with the technical proposals for NAIA.
Asian Airport Consortium, is composed of Asian Infrastructure and Management Corp., Cosco Capital Inc., Philippine Skylanders Inc. and PT Angkasa Pura II.
The winning bidder will have until March 6 to submit the post-award requirements.
The DOTr expects to sign the concession agreement with the winning bidder on March 15, with the turnover of the facility likely in September this year.
It will serve as co-grantors for the project with the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), which would have a 15-year concession period and an option for a 10-year extension.
The NAIA project involves capital investment to improve the airport’s facilities to comply with the 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.
