Alaminos Airport eyed as regional hub
ALAMINOS Airport will be regional air hub.
The construction of the planned airport in Alaminos City can be expected to start late next year after the acquisition of land requirement shall have been completed.
Initial funds for the acquisition have already been released but it has been clarified that the airport to be constructed will not be for international operations but as a regional hub.
According to Leonardo Quitos, regional director of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) office in Ilocos, the Alaminos Airport “will serve as an airport similar to Casecnan Airport in Antique which serves the transportation requirement of tourists going to Boracay,”
Quitos said the fund release is part of the mobilization efforts to jumpstart the construction of the airport envisioned to serve not just Pangasinan but the entire region.
The Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) completed the feasibility study this year pointing to Alaminos City as the best location for a regional airport.
“A regional airport in Alaminos City will serve the requirements not only of western Pangasinan but the whole province,” he added.
Quitos said with the study and mobilization efforts now in progress, it is unlikely that there will be a change in the airport’s location nor a possibility for having another one built in another site.
“From the national perspective, I don’t think it’s feasible to have two regional airports in one province,” said Quitos, stressing that Alaminos City is already it.
Mayor Reynaldo Velasco of Sta. Barbara has not given up his pursuit to have the airport built in his town.
He said several foreign investors he had contacted already signified their intention to bankroll the construction of an airport in Sta. Barbara.
This means, Velasco said, that the government would no longer have to spend its own fund to build an airport.—LM
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