MANILA — The P170.6 billion approved solicited proposal for the rehabilitation of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport will further improve the capacity of the country's main gateway, Transport Secretary Jaime Bautista said on Monday.

During his tenure, Bautista said they have seen improvements in terms of airport capacity which can now accommodate 135,000 to 140,000 per day compared to 115,000 in July 2022.

Immigration counters have been increased while terminal aesthetics were also improved to promote the Philippine culture, he said.

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) earlier approved the solicited proposal, while closing the track for the over P267 billion unsolicited proposal of the country's top conglomerates or the MIAC consortium.

"We will implement a program of privatizing the Manila International Airport...if we will be able to implement this, we will increase capacity from 32 million a year to 50 million initially and up to 70 million if we have implemented all the infrastructure we need to improve the airport," Bautista told ANC.

He also said the DOTr's solicited proposal is just for 10 years that's why the MIAC's unsolicited proposal for 25 years seemed bigger.

"If you make it 25 years, our proposal is even more than that [compared to MIAC's], so what we're thinking is offering this concession agreement for 15 years, extendable to another 25 years," he said.

He said there is no more space to add a runway at NAIA but operations could be improved to 40 to 50 air traffic movements per hour from the current 38 to 40.

There's also a lot of room for Terminal 2 expansion and a little bit space in Terminal 2, Bautista said.

• NAIA privatization gets green light from NEDA
• MIAC eyes increasing NAIA capacity to 70-M passengers per annum by 2048

-- with reports from Jessica Fenol and Michelle Ong, ABS-CBN News