‘Country may end up with no local carrier’

With the Open Skies policy, the country may end up without a local air carrier like Cambodia.

Jose Perez de Tagle, Philippine Airlines assistant vice president for government affairs, said the country might end up like Cambodia, which had no local carrier since 1999, because of the unlimited air rights that the country gave to foreign airline companies.

Tagle along with other tourism stakeholders attended Monday’s briefing on the Executive Order 29 or the Open Skies Policy organized by the Department of Tourism.

“The issue is never about the access. It’s something else, it could be the marketing, promotions. It’s more of a product thing and we really have to develop our product as a nation to encourage more foreign carriers to get interested in allocating or adding flight frequencies to our country. EO29 is not the right solution,” Tagle said.

Executive Order 29 (EO29) is the order implementing the Open Skies policy in the country.

Tagle said the government should have let the airlines initiate the Open Skies agreements with the help of the government and not the other way around.

Tagle and the other local airline companies said that they supported the government’s thrust to encourage more tourists to visit the country through the Open Skies policy but the government should have done it in such a way as to protect the interest of the local airlines.

They said that this could have been done by ensuring that Philippine carriers would get equal air traffic rights in other countries.

Tagle said letting the airlines initiate the Open Skies agreements with the government’s help was a one way to do that.

Tagle said that what happened now with the government initiating the policy, the foreign airline companies got unlimited air traffic rights to all secondary airports in the country like Cebu and Davao while local airline companies would be left to negotiate for the same arrangement or even just additional air traffic rights in the foreign airlines’ country.

“The initiative should have been from the airline companies, all of the four major companies together going to destinations and asking for additional air traffic rights in that destination before we can allow them to also add flights to our destinations,” he said.

The local airlines agree with the government that the policy will decongest the Ninoy Aquino Internationa Airport by opening the secondary airports of Davao, Cebu and other key destinations in the country.

“With the government’s policy now, the concern is that the foreign international carriers can monopolize the servicing of a place. They can add unlimited flights to Cebu but we can’t negotiate for more to their country because what more can we bargain with? They are already given the unlimited rights,” he said.

Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing and distribution, also said in a statement Cebu Pacific would remain hopeful that the government would use our airspace, which is a very valuable asset of the country, to further the long-term interest of our country with Open Skies agreements that would benefit foreigners and Filipinos alike.

“In some countries, Philippine carriers can no longer add flights because we are already using all our air rights. However, EO29 allows foreign airlines from those countries to operate as many flights as they want to in Cebu, Davao or Cagayan de Oro. Foreigners get unlimited rights but Filipino carriers are limited,” Iyog said.

Tagle, on the other hand, also called for the government to address as soon as possible the downgrading of the country’s air safety rating by the United States and Europe to category 2, which would imply that the government didn’t have the capacity to regulate and secure our airports and the aircrafts that come to our country.

“Because of that downgrading, Philippine carriers are not allowed entry to their major airports. Japan is not allowing us to fly chartered flights and with the EO29, what will become of the local carriers,” he said.

Tagle said that the four major airline companies –PAL, CEB, Airphil Express and Zest Air — have initially met and discussed about the implications of E029 to the industry.

“We have a unified stand on the EO29. However we have not yet issued any unified statement or position paper. We might do that,” Tagle said.