AIRLINE PRESIDENT SAYS: PAL upgrading to int’l standards when pilots quit

By Daxim Lucas
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:50:00 08/04/2010

MANILA, Philippines—Philippine Airlines was in the process of improving its operations by using international standards when it was hit by a spate of pilot resignations amid a threat of a flight attendants’ strike, the company said on Tuesday.

PAL president Jaime Bautista said the flag carrier had been reducing its in-flight crew for its trans-Pacific flights to align itself with the practice of larger and more profitable rivals.
The PAL chief was reacting to a statement of the Flight Attendants’ and Stewards’ Association of the Philippines (Fasap) complaining about the company policy of “arbitrary crew reduction.”

Cathay

In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Bautista said PAL benchmarked itself against the practices of larger and money-making competitors like Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific, which also operate long-range, trans-Pacific flights using Boeing B747 aircraft.

“Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific only use 15 crew members for these flights, which is the minimum crew compliment required by civil aviation authorities for safety reasons,” he said.
By contrast, PAL used to assign 18 flight attendants and stewards to these flights, he said.
“So we informed the flight attendants that we had reviewed our operations, and decided that it was time to implement changes so that we could make some savings,” Bautista said.

‘Spoiled’

He said representatives of the flight crew union then asked that the airline share with it the money it would save from the measure to compensate for the reduced per diem allowances that the crew cutback would cause.

“They seem to be too spoiled,” Bautista said.

He said the measure affected only the crew on wide-bodied aircraft like the Boeing B747 and B777 and the Airbus A340 and A330. Crew complements on smaller aircraft like the Airbus A320 are unaffected.

“Yes, they have to work a little more, but in general, the work load on long-range flights drop sharply after four hours as the passengers go to sleep,” the PAL chief said.
PAL has a cabin crew of about 1,600 and 473 pilots.

Service downgrade

In a statement, Fasap complained that the crew reduction would downgrade rather than improve the quality of PAL’s in-flight service.

The group added that PAL was violating an agreement on the number of flight crew that each aircraft should have.

“PAL has been getting away with its obligations to the riding public,” Fasap official Bob Andaluza said in a statement.

“Flights have been taking off undermanned for the past couple of years. This adversely affects the service and safety performance the passengers deserve,” he added.

Strike threat

The union reiterated its intention to go on strike to protest the airline’s supposed gender and age discrimination practices.

Bautista said, however, that the airline union had agreed to management’s proposal for a reduction in the retirement age for flight attendants from 55 to 40 years old as early as 2000.

Apart from cost-saving reasons, the PAL chief said that this was meant to make sure that the flight crew was fit and strong enough to handle emergency situations.