PAL bucks RP-US air pact

BACOLOD CITY – Philippine Airlines president Avelino Zapanta underscored the other day the robust first-quarter performance of the country’s flag carrier after a dismal showing last year.

In a press conference in Bacolod City, Zapanta also criticized the RP-US Air Agreement, saying that the "lopsided" agreement will be more beneficial to the American carriers which enjoy substantial support from the US government.

"Open skies" is a term given to air service agreements between countries that remove the constraints in the operation of airlines from two countries between, behind, and beyond their respective territories.

Zapanta said PAL is accepting the reality but it is not the time to implement the agreement, adding that government negotiators should postpone it for another 10 years.

"Philippine carriers are not ready for this," he said. Government should be conscious of what is at stake here, he added.

The Philippine government signed an Air Transport Agreement with the US in 1982 where it committed to have an open skies regime in the aviation sector to American carriers.

Under the agreement, Philippine carriers are not allowed to service all US cities. The US limits Philippine flights to the US by requiring them to stop in nine designated gateways and serve only one out of five countries.

American carriers, on the other hand, will have no route restrictions or nearly unlimited access to markets between the Philippines and third countries, an information kit provided by PAL stated.

"The Americans will wipe us out," Zapanta said.

The Philippines has managed to defer its implementation several times, he said, adding that in 1995, the agreement was to defer implementation until October 2003.

Meanwhile, PAL surged back to profitability by posting a record P983.9 million net income for the April-to-June period the year after slipping in the red in 2001.

Zapanta attributed this strong growth to the overseas Filipino workers’ (OFWs) arrivals and returning Filipinos in the US after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The number of Filipino caregivers, nurses and other health profession going to the US also significantly increased, he added.

The surplus, the largest quarterly profits in PAL’s 61-year history, largely made up for the P1.6 billion annual losses the airline suffered in the preceding fiscal year. The deficit was caused mainly by the fallout from the US terror attacks.

The first-quarter profits were also more than twice the P457.7 million net income PAL earned for the same period last year. – Antonieta Lopez