PAL hits Taipei's refusal to resume flights

Philippine Airlines deplored yesterday the decision of the Taiwanese aviation authorities to turn down its application for the resumption of regular flights between the Philippines and Taiwan despite Manila's restoration of the air services agreement. In a letter to PAL, Chang Yu Heng, director of Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), said that the flag carrier's application to operate a daily Manila-Taipei-Manila flight would be considered only after the Philippine Civil Aeronautics Board "grants designated Taiwan carriers all traffic rights," including the disputed sixth freedom rights not mentioned in the agreement.

"This action just demonstrates that Taiwan really doesn't care about tourists or Filipino workers traveling between the two countries, but US-Philippine traffic -- traffic not covered by our agreement," said PAL president Avelino Zapanta.

"The Philippine government has already bent over backwards to restore aviation links but it seems the Taiwanese only care about how many passengers they can poach from us."

Taiwan's precondition to PAL's application is seen as a way of exacting from Manila the grant to its carriers of sixth freedom rights -- or the privilege to carry passengers between the Philippines and a third country, generally the United States.

The carriage of such traffic is not allowed by the air services pact and is tantamount to predatory competition on the bread-and-butter traffic base of PAL.

"We fully realize that meeting this precondition would have an adverse effect on the national interest," said Zapanta. "If we give sixth freedom rights to Taiwanese carriers, you can kiss your national flag carrier goodbye. That's a fact."

PAL applied with the CAA to carry only so-called third and fourth freedom traffic, or passengers travelling between Taiwan and the Philippines -- the only legitimate traffic allowed by the 1996 aviation pact.

In recent months, the CAB has handed down a number of decision to restore air services between the two countries despite the hardline position of the Taiwanese.

On Oct. 1, 1999 -- the same say as the suspension of air services pact -- the CAB approved the request of Taiwanese air charter operator Far Eastern Air Transport Corp. to operate additional flights between Taipei and Kaohsiung, and Subic. These flights, which utilize 190-seater Boeing 757-200 aircraft, substantially increased the flow of Taiwanese tourists to the country.

In response, however, Taiwan's CAA rejected PAL's subsequent application to operate reciprocal charter flights between Laoag and Taipei.