Clark International Airport

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Clark International Airport
Paliparang Pandaigdig ng Clark
DMIA terminal.jpg
Characteristics
ICAO code RPLC
IATA code CRK
Coordinates

15 ° 10 '48 "  N , 120 ° 33' 37"  E Coordinates: 15 ° 10 '48 "  N , 120 ° 33' 37"  E
Height above MSL 148 m (486  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center 2 km north of Angeles City,
80 km northwest of Manila
Street NLEX and SCTEX
Local transport Buses and jeepneys
Basic data
opening 1919
operator Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC)
Terminals 1
Capacity
( PAX per year) 		2.5 million
Runways
02R / 20L 3200 m × 60 m concrete
02L / 20R 3200 m × 45 m concrete
website
https://clarkinternationalairport.com

The airport of the Philippine city ​​of Angeles City , today officially known as Clark International Airport , is located around 80 kilometers northwest of the capital Manila in the area of ​​the municipality of Mabalacat . Until the eruption of the Pinatubo volcano in 1991, the airport was known as Clark Air Base and served the US Air Force as one of its most important bases in Asia. Terminal 1 is finished and was expanded by the end of 2013, increasing the annual capacity from 2 million to 5 million passengers. Terminal 2 was completed in the first expansion stage in 2014. In addition, the construction of a budget terminal was planned for 2014, at which low-cost airlines will be processed in the future , but this has been delayed. The Kuwaiti investment group ALMAL has offered to build Terminal 3 and thus the total capacity to 80 million passengers per person. a. to increase. This would make this airport one of the largest in the world. In the final stage, there will be three parallel taxiways and a rail link, and the A 380 will then also be able to be processed.

history

Hangars at Clark International Airport
Baggage claim at Clark International Airport

The beginnings of the airport go back to an American military base, which was built in 1902 under the name Fort Stotsenburg. The eastern part of Fort Stotsenburg was finally converted into an airfield in 1917 and was named Clark Air Field from 1919 . In 1947 the entire base, consisting of Fort Stotsenburg and Clark Air Field, was renamed to Clark Air Base . During the Cold War , Clark Air Base was an important American air force base in the Pacific region and also played an important role in the logistical supply of military units in Vietnam during the Vietnam War for the USA until 1975. After the eruption of Mount Pinatubo volcano in June 1991, which caused massive damage to the air force base, the Americans withdrew from Clark Air Base and handed it over to the Philippine government in November 1991. In the following years, the name was changed to Clark International Airport and development into a civil airport was pushed ahead. In 1995, under President Fidel Ramos , it was announced that the airport would be expanded to become the second major international airport in the Philippines, alongside the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila. In July 2001 the name of the airport was changed to Diosdado Macapagal International Airport , DMIA for short . Diosdado Macapagal was the ninth President of the Philippines and came from the Pampanga province , where the airport is located. In 2012, it was renamed back to Clark International Airport . In order to appease emerging criticism of this name change, as a compromise, passenger terminal 1 was named Diosdado Macapagal Terminal .

The acceptance of the airport as the future capital city airport by airlines and passengers is still hesitant. Several airlines that had previously started from Clark, including Emirates in 2013 with a daily international connection to Dubai or Air Asia Philippines in 2012 with national connections, initially withdrew from Clark because the passenger numbers were below expectations . As a spokesman for Air Asia Philippines said, the poor transport connections from Manila, some 100 kilometers away, had been underestimated. This should improve with an important link currently under construction between the expressways NLEX in the north and SLEX in the south of Manila. This should reduce the time for transit through the urban area of ​​Manila from today up to 2 hours to around 20 minutes. Completion is planned for 2021. After negotiations with the airport operator, Emirates returned to Clark in 2016, now with a daily connection from Dubai via Cebu to Clark.

On April 22, 2019, part of the ceiling of a passenger terminal collapsed in an earthquake . The airport was closed for 24 hours to assess the damage.

Airlines and Destinations

There are both international and domestic flights from Clark International Airport.

International:

National:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ About CIAC ( Memento of January 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 11, 2014 (English).
  2. ↑ sunstar.com.ph: Renaming of airport an insult to Kapampangans ( memento of January 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 11, 2014 (English).
  3. ↑ dmia.ph: AirAsia Philippines to restore flights at Clark International ( Memento from July 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 19, 2017 (English).
  4. ↑ DPWH (official website of the Philippine Roads Administration ): NLEX – SLEX CONNECTOR ROAD PROJECT , accessed on March 18, 2019 (English).
  5. ↑ clarkairport.com: Emirates Airlines returns to Clark , accessed on April 22, 2019.
  6. ↑ Pampanga's Clark Airport closed for 24 hours after 6.1 quake. In: philstar.com . April 22, 2019, accessed April 22, 2019 .
  7. ↑ clarkairport.com: Airlines and Destinations , accessed on March 19, 2017 (English).