The new San Vicente airport, serving the island of Palawan in the Philippines, opened to scheduled air traffic on May 10, 2018, with Philippine Airlines (PR, Manila Ninoy Aquino International) expected to launch services out of the facility by June 2018, Rappler has reported.
The airport serves the country's first Flagship Tourism Enterprise Zone and is located around 180 kilometres to the north of Palawan's main gateway, Puerto Princesa, and 125 kilometres south of the secondary airport at El Nido. Its construction was started in 2009 and cost a total of PHP62.7 million peso (USD1.2 million).
San Vicente airport opened in Summer 2017 to general aviation and occasional charter flights operated by Air Juan Aviation. Besides the Filipino flag carrier, Cebu Pacific Air is also rumoured to be considering flights from the new airport. Neither of the airlines has thus far specified any prospective routes out of San Vicente.
According to the ch-aviation capacity module, the largest airlines serving Puerto Princesa are currently Cebu Pacific Air (70 weekly departures), Philippines AirAsia (Z2, Manila Ninoy Aquino International) (70), and Philippine Airlines (44), while El Nido is served only by AirSWIFT and Air Juan Aviation.
