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Thursday, January 15, 2004
PAL planes won’t carry sky marshals: top exec
By Cherry T. Lim
PHILIPPINE Airlines (PAL) will not put sky marshals on its planes bound for the United States, but will instead just cancel the flights if there is information of a terrorist threat against them, an airline official said.
In an interview Monday, PAL president and chief operating officer Avelino Zapanta also discussed how the flag carrier intends to deal with threats against its viability by rivals as well as the effect of the May elections on its operations.
In the fight against terrorism, Zapanta said the requirement was for “armed trained government agents to be put on board, (which) the Philippine government doesn’t have, so we can’t comply.”
It costs millions of dollars to train special agents and to acquire the special weapons needed for the job.
On the threat posed by foreign airlines on PAL’s business, the top executive lamented that the Philippine government does not seem to be protecting its carriers as well as it should. “Other governments are helpful to their carriers. Our government appears not to be so protective of its own.”
Closed skies
He cited the case of the 1982 air services agreement with the United States, amended in 1995, which was to open the skies between the two countries beginning last October.
“It’s pseudo open skies because the US was able to open our (Philippine) skies, but US skies are not open to us,” Zapanta said.
Under the deal, the US can enter any point in the Philippines and go to any other country from the Philippines. But the Philippines can fly only to nine points in the US. Beyond the US, Philippine carriers can fly only to five points.
Zapanta was on the government’s side, however, on the Civil Aeronautics Board’s (CAB) denial of Qatar Airways’ request to stop over in Singapore to break its flights from Doha in Qatar to Cebu.
He said procedures had been violated in the initial approval by CAB of Qatar Airways’ request. Local carriers had not been given a copy of the schedules of the routes the foreign airline was applying for before the approval was made. CAB rectified its mistake by revoking the approval.
After the furor Cebu tourism players raised after Qatar Airways threatened to cancel its maiden flight last December, the Singapore stopover was approved for a provisional six months, while renegotiations take place.
Zapanta also denied that PAL was blocking the entry of Qatar Airways, saying when Qatar first sought to fly to the Philippines sometime in 1999, it was only Manila the foreign airline was interested in.
He said it was PAL that pushed for Qatar Airways to fly also to Cebu and Davao.
In pushing for the Doha-Cebu flights, Qatar Airways said it would bring tourists from the Middle East and Europe to the Philippines.
Reacting to this, PAL said it will not aggressively compete with Qatar Airways in this market.
PAL, which stopped flying to Europe in 1998, is planning to re-enter in a year or two yet because Europe does not have as dense a traffic as North America, and it is expensive to operate in Europe.
In the Middle East, PAL flies only to Saudi Arabia because it is “the only viable route.” There are 800,000 Filipinos in Saudi Arabia.
No frills
Philippine Airlines is not even paying attention to no-frills airlines emerging in parts of Southeast Asia.
“We’re doubtful that they’ll be coming here. It is conducive in the Singapore-Malaysia environment because their borders are close and the exchange of traffic is dense. That volume can sustain the operation of no-frills,” he said.
According to Zapanta, of the seven to eight million passengers a year these countries were reporting, about half was traffic between Malaysia and Singapore.
“They used to be one country, so their relatives are on the other side.”
In contrast, the Philippines registered just 1.67 million in tourist arrivals in the first 11 months of last year, down 4.2 percent from a year ago, AFX-Asia said.
PAL expects to post a loss of P800 million in its fiscal year ending March after the Sars outbreak, the Iraq war and high oil prices.
The May elections, however, are expected to boost its fortunes because “there are many flying voters,” meaning voters will return to their hometowns to vote.
The airline is also required to facilitate the movement of Comelec personnel and goods, like ballot boxes.
(January 15, 2004 issue)
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