HONOLULU — It is a rare event that a new foreign airline company would open operations in the Philippnes. It is especially most auspicious that such an airline company to open up new routes during these difficult times while most businesses around the world, including those in the travel industry, are seriously affected by the global impact of the crude oil price crunch. So it was a rather bold move on the part of the American-owned Hawaiian Air to formally break into the Philippine travel market with their direct flight to and from Manila and Honolulu.
I was one of the 120 people from the various private media entities, travel and tourism companies, airport and government officials along with other personalities who were invited by the Hawaiian Air to join this inaugural Manila-Honolulu flight last Thursday. We boarded the wide-body, twin aisle Boeing 767-300ER that could sit up to 264 passengers. So we have plenty of empty seats that we turned into sleeping beds during the 10-hour or so flight time.
No less than the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Hawaiian Air, Mark Dunkerley personally led the inaugural 10-hour flight of the same plane that arrived in Manila last Tuesday. In a brief chat with Dunkerley, he said the Hawaiian Air was attracted to open up this new route in Manila because of the “impressive economic growth” these past two to three years in the Philippines.
Dunkerley told me it took them more than a year to finally open a new route to Manila. Despite the global economic slowdown due to the prevailing oil price hike, Dunkerley is defying the odds and is very bullish that Hawaiian Air would make good business in the Philippines.
A day after our arrival here, what greeted us was a headline of the Honolulu Advertiser in the island of O’ahu. It reported that visitor arrivals in the whole state of Hawaii have gone down by as much as 14.3 percent for the first three months compared to year-ago level. The figures culled from the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau showed the drop in the tourist arrivals in their island state which was mostly those lost from the US passenger market following the closure of Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines operations.
Hawaii’s Tourism Authority president and CEO, Rex Johnson was quoted as saying: “It is not only Hawaii’s problem. The whole airline industry is bleeding red ink.” Before we left Manila, our own airline firms like Cebu Pacific and flag carrier Philippine Airlines have filed petitions to the Civil Aviation Board for fare increases in their respective domestic flights to recover cost of fuel surcharges.
Bleak as it may seem on the prospects ahead, Dunkerley, however, is obviously unperturbed by these developments. He cited that Hawaiian Air has been in operations for the past 79 years. He sees these difficulties as both a challenge and opportunity for their airline company to further maximize business in the travel market. Hawaiian Air is not only the island state’s biggest and longest serving airline company but also is the second largest provider of passenger air service between the US mainland and Hawaii. Manila is Hawaiian Airline’s first gateway city into Asia. Initially, Hawaiian Air offers four times a week to and from Manila and Honolulu.
While waiting for the Philippine government’s approval of their application to open flights to Manila, Hawaiian Air put up a call center in Baguio City. Currently employed there are about 200 Filipino workers providing reservation/electronic ticketing services for the global clientele of Hawaiian Air.
During a l’uau or the traditional Hawaiian reception here, the Filipino community warmly received the opening of the Manila-Honolulu route of the Hawaiian Air. In the native language here, the news was greeted with “Aloha” while its counterpart greeting to us in the Philippines is “Mabuhay!”
Rep. Raul Del Mar, who was the only one who turned up dressed in typical barong tagalog, grudgingly obliged to do the honor of speaking in behalf of the delegation from Manila. The deputy speaker from Cebu acknowledged the “phenomenal” entry of Hawaiian Air into the Philippine economic sphere.
Our local tour operators like Aileen C.Clemente, president of Rajah Travel Corp., is also happy to welcome Hawaiian Air to operate flights to Manila. Clemente sadly noted the Philippine routes have come unprofitable for the operations of major international airline firms due to the “disincentives” that previously led other US airlines to abandon their Manila routes. Talks are rife in the travel industry that KLM, which is servicing Manila to key Europe cities, might soon pullout their operations in the Philippines.
Clemente cited these airline firms have been turned off reportedly by lack of government attention to address their problems and concerns. They have repeatedly presented key issues on taxes and fees to concerned authorities from the Department of Tourism, to the Department of Finance, and all the way to the Department of Transportation and Communications. This is not to mention the fact about the sorry state of NAIA as our country’s premier international airport.
Tourism is a major dollar earner that has multiplier effect in the country’s economy from the jobs and revenues from hotels to restaurants, resorts, retail shopping, transport cars and buses, etc. The number one industry in Hawaii, for one, is tourism. That is why, any blips in the tourism radar screen such as “Visitor arrivals down 14.3%” hit the headlines of major Hawaiian newspapers.
We should do no less in the Philippines in giving priority attention to our tourism industry. As it is right now, there has been little interest among Congress and the Senate in the passage into law of the long pending proposed “Tourism Code” that Philippine tour and travel industry players have been pushing for.
The only thing about tourism that many of our lawmakers are into are their own “junket” trips abroad where many of them are returning when Congress resumes sessions today after a month-long recess.
