US targets balikbayan passengers, says SOS

Adopting open skies would not generate more tourists as the bulk of visitors would be Filipino migrants or balikbayan (returning Filipinos) from the United States, the Save Our Skies (SOS) movement said yesterday.

SOS added that unless the travel advisories of several foreign governments warning their citizens against flying to the Philippines are lifted, the program to attract more tourists to the country would not gain ground even if open skies is adopted by the government.

Australia recently warned its citizens from traveling to the Philippines because of the unstable peace and order situation, following the lead of the US, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.

Earlier, Prof. Digas Doganis, an international aviation expert, said open skies will enable US airlines to fly from any point in the US to any point in Southeast or East Asia (as a result of open skies agreements with other Asian countries).

But he said this is not the case with local airlines, which will continue to be bound by capacity restrictions under existing bilateral accords between their states. "For example, Northwest could operate unlimited frequencies between Manila and Kuala Lumpur but Philippine Airline and Malaysian Airlines would be restricted by the terms of the current air services agreement."

The RP-US Air Transport Agreement, set to take effect in October 2003, provides for the full implementation of an open-skies regime between Manila and Washington. The agreement gives US carriers unlimited access to any destination in the Philippines with the right to pick up passengers and fly them to any third country.

On the part of the Philippines, RP carriers can fly to nine entry points in the US with 16 possible destinations, but they are not allowed to pick up passengers from either the entry point or the destination.

The call for open skies by the US, Filipino officials said, is unfair considering that American airlines have received a huge cash injection about $15 billion from the Federal government since Sept. 11, 2001 after some of the airlines filed Chapter 11 or bankruptcy cases.

Britain, a close ally of the US, has also opposed moves to enter into an open skies agreement with Washington with Prime Minister Tony Blair claiming the accord would be detrimental to British carriers. Only countries with small or no aviation markets are the ones interested in open skies, statistics show.

Doganis, consultant and strategy adviser to airlines, airport and banks, had urged the Philippine government to "rethink the value of open-skies agreements as they may be a recipe for disaster for weaker flag carriers."

"An open skies agreement between the US and Philippines would be very helpful to US airlines but potentially harmful to any RP airline attempting to compete with them on the Pacific routes or elsewhere," he said.

Instead of immediately adopting open skies, Doganis recommended a phased implementation. "For nations that have weak economies and weak airlines, the alternative to an immediate open-skies regime with a much more powerful aviation power, like the United States, would be a phased adoption of open skies over a three-to five-year period."

There would also be a foreign-exchange loss for the national economy. Foreign currency earnings by Philippine aviation companies would be reduced while expenditures by Filipinos and exporters or importers using foreign airlines would increase.

The absence of a competitive local airline with a wide international network fed by a domestic network may adversely affect exports, like tuna from General Santos City.