Government urged to protect local carriers

Save Our Skies (SOS) founder Robert Lim Joseph said yesterday his group is not against a government policy to liberalize air access into the country. What it objects to, he said, is putting local carriers at a great disadvantage by granting foreign airliners highly advantageous concessions.

Joseph asked where is fairness in a policy that grants 17 weekly flights to both Korean and Philippine carriers yet the former would be using bigger planes, thus enabling them to carry big numbers of passengers.

"This deal puts Philippine carriers at a great disadvantage because the Korean carriers would be able to carry more passengers per flight as a result of their bigger aircraft," he said.

He added: "The government should be fair. It should scrutinize every deal properly. Transportation and Communications Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez should not be in a hurry to finalize deals with foreign carriers because the Philippines may be at a disadvantage."

Joseph said it appears that the Philippine government is very lenient to foreign airlines. "The DOTC must take into account that Philippine carriers might get killed because of the tough competition being posed by foreign carriers and the unequal deals."

He said the government was again in a hurry when it granted additional seat capacity to Singaporean carriers despite excess seat capacity on the route and the lack of demand.

"There are fears now that these Singapore airliners would be poaching on passengers of Philippine carriers as they have the excess assets to fill up," he said.

"The DOTC has to be pro-Filipino. It should make deals which are fair to the Philippine carriers or the industry might just die down. The Filipino players are small compared to the foreign carriers," Joseph said.

According to him, as early as 1986, he had already warned that foreign carriers would only service routes that are profitable to their operations.

"Carriers will normally invest in a destination when there is perceived to be a strong demand for that destination, or where flights there would contribute to the financial viability of their system-wide operations," Joseph said, to refute beliefs by open skies advocate that opening Philippine skies would encourage the foreign carriers to fly in and bring in the tourists.

He said many foreign airliners have been granted seat entitlements to the Philippines but they have not utilized these for lack of passengers.

Records at the Department of Tourism and Bureau of Immigration would also show that the increase in the grant of air seats to foreign carriers did not generate the projected tourist arrivals.

"The carriers will only operate to the extent considered viable," Joseph said.