Lawmakers seek House inquiry into policies, practices of airline companies

MANILA, Philippines - Several administration lawmakers are seeking a congressional inquiry into what they described as questionable policies of airline companies on the matter of flight delays and cancellations as well as their exorbitant fees and charges.

Reps. Carol Jayne Lopez of the You Against Corruption and Poverty (YACAP party-list); Seth Frederick Jalosjos (Zamboanga del Norte); Gabriel Luis Quisumbing (Cebu); Lord Allan Velasco (Marinduque), Mark Aeron Sambar (PBA party-list); Romeo Jalosjos Jr. (Zamboanga Sibugay); Sherwin Tugna (CIBAC party List); and Jonathan Yambao (Zamboanga Sibugay) filed House Resolution No. 1634 asking the House committee on transportation to look into the “policies and practices of airline companies on flight delays/cancellations, fees, charges and refunds to prevent undue and unnecessary inconvenience to airline passengers and travellers.”

They said mounting complaints from their constituents drove them to seek the investigation as hundreds of thousands of Filipinos rely on air travel across the country.

   They said that while the “budget fare” promos have “encouraged domestic and foreign travels,” many travellers have complained of the airline policies on “flight delays/cancellations and related fees/charges/refunds among others” simply because they failed to read the “fine print provisions” in their tickets or that these were not clearly explained to them when they bought the tickets.

“It seems everyone has their own horror stories to tell relative to their nightmarish experiences with airline companies,” Seth Frederick said.

He related the case of his two constituents who got a P5,600 promo fare for a Zamboanga-Manila-Zamboanga trip for two but ended up spending P12,000 in penalties on the way back to Zamboanga after arriving 10 minutes late before the check-in counter of a local airline company.

Aside from the allegedly exorbitant penalties on late, no-show passengers and those who re-book their flights, other complaints involve no-refund policies 24 hours before the flight; as much as five months delay in the release of refunds; unannounced change of destinations; poor customer service in check-in counters, on-line and through telephone; flight delays without timely announcements; and no comfort given in terms of food or hotels to passengers who suffer long flight delays, the lawmakers said.

“Some of our poor constituents feel as if they are `hostaged’ by these questionable policies and are powerless to fight the mega-airline companies,” Quisumbing said.

“It seems that they are penalizing us for every imaginable infraction in our contract of carriage but we get no compensation if they fly late or change flight destinations without informing us,” Lopez said.

Tugna, a lawyer, it’s all about “fairness” in the dealings between two contracting parties whereby the public seems to be getting short-changed in their dealings with the giant airline companies

“Unfortunately it seems that the whole airport transport service is boiling down to a mere business scheme and competition among the airlines fighting for air dominance with little regards towards how the little people feel or are affected by the thing,” Sambar, a medical doctor by profession, said.