Customs may auction off seized Skyjet aircraft

The Bureau of Customs may soon auction off an 80-seater aircraft owned by Skyjet Airlines if the company is found to have defrauded the government of about P90 million in taxes.

Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña on Monday said the airline was appealing the bureau’s seizure of its P583-million plane in March last year.

The bureau found that Skyjet’s owner and operator, Magnum Air Inc., had already been taken off the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority’s list of locators in 2014.

According to Carmelita Talusan, the customs collector at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, this meant that Skyjet was no longer exempted from paying duties and taxes, which was accorded to locators at the freeport. —Jovic Yee