Phl, Brazil ink air services agreement

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines and Brazil have inked an agreement on air services yesterday to further boost travel between Manila and Sao Paolo, a ranking official of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) announced yesterday.

CAB executive director Carmelo Arcilla said in a text message to reporters that the agreement would allow seven flights for the Philippine designated carriers and seven flights for airlines designated by Brazil.

Arcilla said this is the first air service agreement (ASA) with Brazil.

 â€œThis agreement allows for seven flights between Manila and Brazil, with fifth freedom traffic rights to any third country points. In addition it allows for unlimited traffic rights between Brazil and other gateways in the Philippines except Manila, also with fifth freedom to any third country points,” he stressed.

The fifth freedom rights give airlines the right to fly passengers to third countries from a country with which its resident country has an outstanding ASA.

This is the second pact signed by the Philippines after successfully concluding talks with Australia wherein both countries agreed to allow seven flights per week between the Philippines and Melbourne.

The Philippine Air Panel is composed of the DOTC, Department of Tourism (DOT), Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), CAB, among others.

The Philippines is looking at holding air talks with Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Russia, and Taiwan this year after concluding talks with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Singapore, and South Korea last year.

Under the “pocket-open skies policy” of the Aquino administration, the country concluded four successful air talks in 2011 including that of Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, and Vietnam. It also had inconclusive air talks with Indonesia and Taiwan in 2011.

President Aquino has signed Executive Order 29 authorizing the CAB and the Philippine air panels to pursue more aggressively the international civil aviation liberalization policy.

To boost the country’s competitiveness as a tourism destination and investment location, the government decided to pursue more aggressively a liberalization policy in international aviation through the grant of third, fourth and fifth freedom rights and unrestricted capacities and frequencies to foreign air carriers, among others.

The country’s tourism department sees the number of tourists visiting the country reaching 10 million by 2016.

There are about 10 million Filipinos working and living abroad that provide the country with much needed buffer funds in the form of gross international reserves (GIR) against financial crisis.