Iñigo Zobel: New Air Philippines president

Polo sportsman Iñigo Zobel has just been elected president of Air Philippines (now Airphil Express), the low cost sister airline of PAL. This is the first time that Iñigo – who is a shareholder of San Miguel and has sat on the board since 1999 – has accepted any executive position precisely because his passion for polo takes him to so many countries to compete. As a matter of fact, he is set to fly to London this week in preparation for the Queen’s Cup, one of the most prestigious in the world and whose finals is slated in June.

When the SMC group of Ramon Ang acquired 49 percent of PAL, one of the five SMC representatives to the board of PAL holdings aside from RSA is Iñigo, Roberto Ongpin, Aurora Calderon and Ferdinand Constantino. Part of the $500 million deal is for the SMC group to exercise control of the management for both PAL and Air Philippines.

Mr. Polo himself told Spy Bits he will do his best to manage the airline even if he has other commitments – primarily his involvement in numerous polo competitions here and abroad. Nevertheless, the wealthy Ayala heir has always made it a point to attend board meetings in San Miguel, regularly allocating two days in Manila for that schedule. In fact, RSA was so appreciative of Iñigo’s efforts that he gifted the polo patron with a brand new Mercedes. Fair enough, since the sportsman donates the per diem due him as a board member to charity.

CAAP steps up

It’s certainly welcome news to know that starting this August, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) will start implementing very strict rules for air safety not only for commercial flights, but even for private aircraft. The Philippines has lost out a lot not only in terms of revenue, but also our overall reputation due to the Category 2 rating downgrade by the US Federal Aviation Administration, with DOTC Secretary Mar Roxas and even President Noynoy Aquino are getting impatient, giving the CAAP officials a one-year ultimatum to get things done.

After all, CAAP is mandated to implement safety rules and regulations for all aircraft – not only to investigate accidents. Private aircraft owners and pilots should comply with all air safety rules from flight scheduling to checking with air traffic control. We have to bring all parties concerned up to speed if we want that Category 1 rating upgrade. In retrospect however, the downgrade seems to be a blessing in disguise for many people because it has made aviation officials more conscious of safety problems and the shortcomings noted in several evaluations made by FAA representatives.

Even this columnist had a near mishap two years ago while en route to Batangas. An American pilot named Mike O’Farrell, who was flying a fixed seaplane registered under Subic Seaplane Inc., violated a safety rule by flying dangerously close to our helicopter route – which he really had no business doing at all because fixed-wing aircraft should be flying on a different altitude. It was a very close call – with our pilot avoiding a collision by just a matter of seconds.

Just last month, Cebu Pacific and Zest Air had a wingtip-to-wingtip collision at the Puerto Princesa airport, but fortunately, no one was reported hurt. Which also brings to mind the problem concerning congestion in our airports especially at NAIA. It’s rather ironic to know that there are some 911 aircraft per day that make use of airports and yet the facilities and infrastructure continue to be deficient – compounding the inconvenience experienced by passengers due to flight delays because the existing runways cannot measure up to the growing number of aircraft.

Secretary Mar Roxas should consider the suggestion to fast track the relocation of aviation schools and private planes operating near NAIA, upgrade the existing equipment in many secondary airports around the country in order to facilitate night landings, and most of all, prioritize the construction of additional runways – the rapid exit taxi-ways to be precise – in order to ease the existing congestion. An additional runway can be designated for the exclusive use of PAL aircraft while the other one can be used for others.

New car, no plate

The cancellation of the contract between the Land Transportation Office and Stradcom is going to make life even more difficult for new car owners because the wait for license plates is sure to take interminably long. The Stradcom contract expired last February and despite calls for an extension at least until 2013 in order to effect smooth transition and prevent LTO from reverting to manual operations, DOTC Secretary Mar Roxas decided against an extension or short-term renewal.

Stradcom spokesperson Margaux Salcedo said the company’s proposal for a transitory period includes P2 billion worth of fresh capital for rehabilitation and upgrade of existing LTO infrastructure and systems, with cloud computing included to facilitate car registration procedures, license renewals, biometrics, employee trainings and other components.

Like in most government biddings, the process is sure to be lengthy, from conceptualization of contract parameters, documentation and submission, verification, evaluation of proposals and all the other requirements before the project can be rolled-out on a nationwide level. Observers say we’d be lucky if everything is done within a year considering that the previous LTO contract with Stradcom took almost nine years to complete.

Meanwhile, new vehicle owners will just have to content themselves with getting conduction stickers and renewing them week after week until such time as the license plates are available – hopefully within three months at the least, the same observers noted.

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