The Future of Subic Airport

The Subic Bulletin has done some investigation on the future of Subic Airport and this is what we have been able to uncover so far:

FedEx is not using Clark as a loading or unloading point, this was a mistaken observation of a reader. There is only two FedEx flights landing at Clark each day and they don’t even take on fuel, this is because flights are not permitted to travel directly between Taiwan and China for political reasons. Flights between these countries have to go somewhere, anywhere, when flying between the two countries. I believe the pilots just get out and kick the tires before continuing on their journey.

The Subic International Airport is still being kept alive by FedEx, they still have a team there just in case something goes wrong in China, they could then bring flights back to the old Subic hub, The Subic Bulletin was told that this "insurance policy" costs FedEx about USD$115,000 per month and will be discontinued at the end of the year.

So I hear you ask why does that China-Taiwan flight land in Clark when FedEx is still keeping Subic alive, the bottom line is that Clark has cheaper landing fees making a “technical stop” (without using services) in Clark much more appealing to FedEx. Once again greed and poor negotiation leaves Subic on the side lines.

So what about the future of our much loved Subic Airport?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but when FedEx makes its final withdrawal in December this year there will no longer be any justification for running the ILS (Instrument Landing System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system) and without it there will be no more chance of commercial flights landing in Subic.

The ILS in Subic is very old and when it is powered down its unlikely that you would ever get it back into service. Given that SBMA can't even fix a set of traffic lights, the ILS has no hope.

It would seem that SBMA is remaining quiet on the airport issue because it is a ticking time bomb, if they can’t court a rich investor/operator to use the airport for commercial purposes before the end of this year the airport will probably be auctioned off to Koreans for another gaudy development to scar the bay.

But how could SBMA court a new investor when their commercial capabilities are so inept that they can’t even get our old friend FedEx to land one or two planes a day? Seems we can only pray for a miracle.