Integration of terminal fees with airline tickets bucked

MANILA, Philippines - The local recruitment industry yesterday rejected the government’s plan to include the payment of terminal fee in the tickets of international airlines.

Recruitment leader Jackson Gan said the plan of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) would only bring additional burden to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

“It is impractical and will only add more confusion for ticket holders, particularly OFWs who are exempted from paying terminal fee,” Gan added.

Starting October this year, the Manila International Airport Authority will implement the plan and foreign airlines will collect the terminal fee from their passengers.

The airport tax will be refunded to exempted passengers, who are mostly OFWs, by airport authorities, according to news reports.

But Gan said that if the intention of the proposed scheme is to shorten long queues inside the airport, the effect would not be as expected since huge numbers of OFWs would have to fall in line for terminal fee refunds. The fee should be refunded to the foreign employers and not to the OFWs, he said.

“Why should the airport refund the terminal fee of P550 to the workers who did not pay for the tax but the agencies and their employers who funded the deployment of the workers?” he asked.

Gan said it would also be additional cost for the agencies or employers who are paying for the ticket since OFWs were previously exempted from paying such fee. There are also no airlines official in some international airports to refund the terminal fee.

“The DOTC should have consulted first the recruitment industry as there is an estimated one million airline tickets paid for each year by the industry,” Gan added.