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Malaya ® Sunday
November 10, 1996
Reader's Form

I used to hear the derisive "Plane Always Late" in reference to the notoriety of PAL's service in many of my Manila-Cebu flights. Now, and thanks to competition, this notoriety is no more.

Nowadays, I really enjoy the complimentary snack at the new domestic airport lounge. I also enjoy clean-smelling comfort rooms and brand new air-conditioning system.

But why is it that PAL employees continue to agitate for more benefits as if they are the lowest paid workers in the world? Why do PAL employees behave like government bureaucrats - the kind of bureaucrats not found in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur which I happen to know too, having worked abroad up the early '90s as expatriate executive.

And it makes me wonder also why PAL's new management cannot transfer to ground service all of its old (aging) stewardesses. I have nothing against aging as sign of maturity but I feel great discomfort looking (close to) pot-belied stewardesses laboriously ambling abound the aisle heavy and seemingly and obviously uncomfortable also because they are already unfit to fly.

For the sake of national pride and most specially in order to attain global competitiveness, why can't the government decide once and for all to end this suffering at PAL and all its competitors in the air.

Why doesn't Congress enact an Omnibus Airline Transport Reform Program? This is the only safe route to be competitive in the 21st Century and allow Phili-pine tourism to raise its level on par with its regional counterparts.

This is not impossible dream.

Borrowing from the favorite quotations of President Fidel V. Ramos..."this is a doable (achievable) objective."

EDGARDO DE LA TORRE, 22 San Antonio, Inayawan, Pardo, Cebu City