By Joey Aguilar/Staff Reporter


While Emirates Airlines recently decided to stop services to Clark International Airport (CIA), Qatar Airways continues to get positive response to its daily flights it launched  to the Philippine city in November last year, a top official of the airport has told Gulf Times.
Victor Jose Luciano, president of the Clark International Airport Corporation, noted an increasing number of passengers from Doha arriving at CIA flying Qatar Airways .
“We have observed that Qatar Airways flights to Clark are always fully booked,” he stressed.
Qatar’s flag carrier also flies daily to Manila.
He said many overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) coming from the northern Philippines and those living in some parts of Metro Manila prefer to land at Clark.
Many newly-hired Filipinos and OFWs working in other GCC countries such as Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia take QA’s Clark-Doha flights, according to Luciano.
A passenger who spoke to Gulf Times said their home in Subic, Zambales is only about 45 minutes away from the airport. From Manila, it would take him more than five hours (depending on the flow of the traffic) before he finally reach his native town.
Clark is about 96km north of Manila. A female passenger who lives in Manila but took the Clark flight said it only takes less than two hours to reach their house in Quezon City.
“There was a time when we spent more than six hours on the road because of the huge traffic going out of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila,” she recounted.
Passengers who land in Clark also enjoy a complimentary bus service to and from Trinoma Mall and Resorts World-Manila daily.
Many airline passengers said travel from Clark to some parts of Manila is more convenient since travel time becomes less using the north Luzon expressway.
Besides OFWs from nearby GCC countries, Luciano also noted that transit passengers from the US and Europe also use the Doha-Clark flights.
Although other budget carriers such as Air Asia had left CIA, it still hosts a number of airlines such as Asiana (Seoul-Incheon), Cebu Pacific (Hongkong, Macau, Singapore), Dragonair (Hongkong), Jin Air (Seoul-Incheon), Tigerair (Singapore) and Tigerair-Philippine (Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Hongkong and Kalibo).
The national government has allotted P7.2bn for the airport’s terminal expansion to accommodate some 15mn passengers per year.
Luciano, some airport officials and stakeholders are planning to hold road shows in the Gulf region this year to promote CIA.