Philippine tycoons raise proposed investment to upgrade airport to $4.8b amid tourism boom

The Manila International Airport Consortium said it will spend as much as 267b pesos ($4.8b) to upgrade the country’s congested main international gateway amid a post-pandemic tourism boom. The consortium—backed by the country’s biggest conglomerates including billionaire Andrew Tan’s Alliance Global Group, and Filinvest Development and JG Summit—partnered with U.S.-based Global Infrastructure Partners, which has interests in airports across London and Sydney, to modernize the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and more than double its capacity to 70m passengers a year by 2048 from 31m currently. The project will be implemented in phases, with the first phase expected to bring NAIA annual passenger capacity to 54m by 2025 and then to 62.5m by 2028. The consortium budgeted 100b pesos when it proposed the project in April. “The Manila International Airport Consortium recognizes the immense task of transforming NAIA to meet the exponentially growing demands of Mega Manila air travel, not only in the here and now but also in the future,” Kevin Tan, chairman and president of Alliance Global-InfraCorp Development. “It is because of this that the members of the consortium have pooled together its significant resources, technical expertise and operational experience to put forward a NAIA Masterplan.” The consortium also includes Ayala Corp’s AC Infrastructure, Aboitiz InfraCapital (operator of Mactan-Cebu International Airport) and billionaire Lucio Tan’s Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp. A proposal to upgrade NAIA in 2018 was rejected by then-President Rodrigo Duterte during the pandemic.<br/>