PAL PRESIDENT: GOVT STIFLING INTERNATIONAL AIRLINE GROWTH
MANILA, JUNE 6, 2011 (MALAYA) By AMADO MACASAET - The government is effectively preventing the growth of the international airline industry in the Philippines.
In a speech Thursday before the Rotary Club West of Makati City, Jaime C. Bautista, president and chief executive of Philippine Airlines, revealed that the European Union has banned Philippine-based carriers from flying to any destination in Europe.
Airport safety concerns have similarly been raised by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Bautista stressed that these safety concerns "do not in any way reflect on PAL's compliance with international safety standards but rather on the safety oversight capability of the Philippine government, particularly the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines."
He said "these international agencies found deficiencies not in PAL but on the capability of the CAAP to oversee the operations of local airlines."
"When it comes to safety compliance, PAL has passed not once, not twice but thrice the very rigid safety audit of the IATA (International Association of Travel Agencies)," Bautista said.
"To date, PAL remains the only Philippine-based carrier that has passed the international safety audit (of IATA)," he said.
According to Bautista, it is not only the Category II status of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport that threatens the entire airline industry.
He said there is also congestion in air traffic.
"For what can be considered safe operations, the NAIA runway should accommodate a maximum of 36 take-offs and landings per hour," he said.
He said the call of government for more flights has resulted in 54 take-offs and landings. He said in not too few occasions, the number goes to as high as 60 per hour.
He also said the terminals are congested. The congestion, he said, is the principal reason for flight delays. Long delays are translated into more fuel expense and frayed nerves of passengers. They blame the airline for the delays.
The EU banned passengers to ride aircraft with Philippine destinations because the airport here has long been classified as Category II. This category, by the standards of the ICAO, borders on lack of safety.
It has to be upgraded to Category I.
If the NAIA is under Category I, Philippine-based airlines can fly to any destination in the United States. But PAL flights are limited to San Francisco and Los Angeles in California.
Canadian civil authorities allowed PAL to land in Vancouver where it can also pick passengers bound for the final destination in Las Vegas.
To help the CAAP upgrade NAIA to Category I, Lucio Tan, principal owner of PAL, hired a foreign expert at his own expense. Simultaneously, PAL has ordered four B-777, obviously in the hope that the upgrade will happen soon.
It is the presumed unsafe airport that forced seven American airlines and five European carriers to stop flying to Manila. They ran out of passengers who were scared of the lack of safety in flying to Manila.
Strangely, tourist arrivals continue to increase. More and more of them come from South Korea and Japan and the rest from the ASEAN region.
Filipinos who have acquired American citizenship fly PAL from the West Coast. Europeans who come to the Philippines buy tickets from other airlines and fly KLM to Manila from elsewhere, mostly from Amsterdam.
There was a grant obtained by the Arroyo government to modernize the NAIA. The bidding was done in two stages. In the first bidding, only one qualified and appeared. There are no reports on how much it has done.
Likely than not, the contract for the second phase will be awarded to the winner of the first. Sources in civil aviation intimated that foreign hopefuls were so dissatisfied with the way the first bidding was obviously rigged.
They will not participate in the bidding for the second phase.
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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