Airline woes and its aftermath

By VINCE G. LOPEZ
August 14, 2010, 10:14am
Manila Bulletin

Before the sudden exit of the 25 Philippine Airlines pilots stirred havoc in the aviation industry, the country’s flag carrier airline had maintained a positive outlook towards recovering from the recent economic crisis here and abroad through what they call “Cautious Optimism”.

“Cautious Optimism” may have been the right term to describe the status of recovering from the crisis. But the airline staff, more specifically the pilots who left for “greener” pastures abroad, didn’t share this optimism. The said pilots referred to salary cuts and transfers to sister airline Air Philippines among the numerous problems that caused their sudden resignation.

As of writing, talks between the pilots and the airline company have not produced satisfactory results. PAL however, promises to do everything they can in order to retain the pilots and avoid further disruptions in its flight schedules.
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Cause of Delay
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PAL recently cleared that there are only three main destinations that are affected by the incident, specifically Iloilo, Bacolod, and Cagayan. The flights for the said destinations receive less frequencies and re-booking due to availability of the pilots.

In a recent interview, Philippine Airlines President and CEO Jimmy Bautista said that they are currently ironing out the flight schedules to avoid further disruptions and delays for their passengers. Bautista also added that most of the international flights are unaffected by the current dilemma of the airline and that its local flights will still resume but affected destinations will have less frequencies.
The Airline Company’s president also admitted that it has not been an easy road to recovery even before the current predicament had happened as they continue to compete with other airlines’ low fare promos. Its sister company, Air Philippines, has been rivaling other airline companies’ low-fare promos.

Baustista however remains confident that everything will be settled in due time as such an incident had already happened before back in 2006. He mentioned that back then a number of pilots had also resigned but the company has managed to turn things back to normal.
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The Situation in Terminal 3
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As if to illustrate a familiar saying, “One man’s loss is another man’s gain”, the number of passengers and flight frequencies for the country’s leading low fare carrier Cebu Pacific (CEB) has been increasing recently.

“We cannot identify whether the movement in forward bookings is due to the PAL situation, because we continue to offer the lowest fares and fly to the most destinations in the Philippines,” said Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific’s Vice-President for Marketing and Distribution.

Flight frequencies are due to increase starting October when CEB will have daily flights to Taipei. The airline is also scheduled to have daily flights from Cebu to Singapore while other destinations such as Kota Kinabalu, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Seoul will also have added flight frequencies.
“We are increasing flight frequencies because we are expecting three more brand-new Airbus A320 aircraft in the last quarter of this year. This is why the flight increases are scheduled from October onwards. With new aircraft, we continue to strengthen our network by offering our passengers more convenient flight schedules and more flight frequencies at the lowest fare for their travel needs,” explained Iyog.

She continues: “The flight frequency increase is part of our expansion plan, and not brought about by what is happening to PAL. We are just following our normal course of business, and executing our 2010 plans.”

As the airline company has been known to offer the cheapest fares for Filipinos passengers, the company is not concentrating on capitalizing on its rival’s current situation.

“CEB will continue to follow its low-cost business strategy because it was what brought us to where we are today as the Philippines’ largest national flag carrier,” added Iyog.