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QATAR
Airways’ Philippine chief is happy about the weather.
“It’s good
out there, isn’t it?” was Rohan Seneviratne’s first
comment to the writer, while he peeks through the
light-green blinds of his office in Makati City.
Despite
rising jet-fuel costs and intense competition from
low-cost carriers, Seneviratne describes the business
climate in the Philippines for Qatar’s flag carrier as
fair.
“I haven’t
heard any problems at all with the old international
airport or the FAA downgrade,” he says, when asked on the
impact of the United States Federal Aviation Authority’s
(FAA) rating on the Philippines’ airport.
 He’s
also less concerned with the political noise in the
country or in other countries outside the
Philippines.
“Manila is
very important for us, because 90 percent of the time, all
flights out of Manila are full,” Seneviratne adds. In
fact, he still sees “a huge growth in this market.”
Seneviratne has the numbers to base his optimism. Under
his watch, the airline’s total gross Philippine billings
shot up by nearly 28 percent to P3.6 billion, from P2.8
billion for the fiscal year ended March 2006. Passenger
sales remained at its steady upward double-digit range
above 30 percent quarter-on-quarter despite declines in
cargo sales in 2006 to 2007.
Based on
the airline’s latest financial statement to the Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC), Qatar Airways’s passenger
sales remained its strong point, rising by 35 percent to
P3.04 billion as of end-March 2007, from P2.3 billion in
the same period in 2006.
The nearly
2-percent dip in cargo sales was arrested by year-on-year
sales in excess baggage. Excess baggage sales shot up by
60 percent to nearly P13 million, from P8 million in 2006.
To think
that Seneviratne has just recently been appointed area
manager of Qatar Airways’s Philippine and Micronesia
business. The Sri Lankan replaced Mohammed Riyaz of
India
two years ago.
Young
airline
QATAR
Airways is one of the youngest international airlines
given the right to operate on Philippine soil. It got its
SEC license just eight years ago in June 2000.
It flies
nine times a week from
Manila,
and three times from Cebu to 81 destinations around the
world.
Seneviratne said there are still no plans to increase
capacity just yet.
“What we
want right now is getting the right mix,” Seneviratne
said, adding that the airline would focus on the corporate
market segment.
He
explained this strategy as logical because “there’re lots
of establishments, semigovernment and international
companies with foreign collaborations in the Philippines.”
“There’re
a lot of frequent flyers from business also for MICE
[meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions],”
Seneviratne added.
It is this
segment that 20 percent of our revenue comes from, he
said. “It may not be as high as
China,
but the Philippines is important for us.”
The
national airline for the emirate of Qatar has focused on
providing five-star hotel-type services to its long-haul
flights.
Qatar
Airways also prides itself with its elite Premium Terminal
at Doha International Airport. It’s the world’s first
dedicated terminal for First and Business Class passengers
that no other airline can offer. Seneviratne said it’s the
best value-added product Qatar Airways wields in its
aggressive foray into the corporate segment of the travel
and tour market.
Likewise,
he said, they see the trend of long-haul travel picking
up, especially for leisure and foreign individual
travelers (FITs).
The World
Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and Oxford Economics
back up this strategy. The WTTC reported that travel and
tourism entered the new year “on the back of another solid
performance in 2007.”
“International tourism arrivals increased in this year by
nearly 6 percent, totaling to nearly 900 million tourists
and marking the fourth successive year that arrivals’
growth has exceeded its long-standing trend of 4 percent,”
a WTTC press statement said, citing the United Nations
World Travel Organization as source.
WTTC
president Jean-Claude Baumgarten has said that tourism
growth is “particularly rapid in developing countries with
the fastest average growth in tourism arrivals in the
Middle East region.”
“These
countries are not only recognizing the development
potential of travel and tourism and therefore investing
heavily in new infrastructure and facilities, but their
citizens are also seeing rapid economic growth boost their
incomes beyond the level where international travel
becomes both a feasible and desired option,” Baumgarten
was quoted as saying.
Right mix
QATAR
is home to only half-a-million people, and there are many
foreigners, with South Asians, mainly Indians, Pakistanis,
Bangladeshis, and Filipinos, making up about 35 percent of
the population. Qataris account for only 20 percent of the
population.
From 1998
up to 2005, the latest Philippine government data reveals
some 116,770 Filipinos registered themselves as workers to
Qatar. Deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to
Qatar
nearly hit a 50-percent growth from 2004 to 2005,
according to data from the Philippine Overseas Employment
Administration.
“OFWs is a
separate market [segment],” Seneviratne stressed, adding
that the airline is banking more on the skilled market
traffic. “They bring ready-made passengers; they can fill
your seats, especially on the long-haul flight [Qatar is
12 hours away from Manila],” he explained.
He said
what the airline wants is to find the right mix of OFWs
and the corporate flyers.
As such,
the airline is packaging the flights to destinations other
than Doha. “We want to offer more destinations in Europe,
the Holy Land, various exotic destinations in the Middle
East and Aftica,” Seneviratne added.
According
to the WTTC report on the Philippines, personal or leisure
travel and tourism consumption is worth an estimated $5
billion of the total $12.8 billion travel and tourism
consumption value. Business travel and tourism consumption
is worth $3.7 billion.
If that’s
not a fair business climate for Qatar Airways, then
Seneviratne’s curiosity for Philippine weather may be
doused.
However,
if you ask him, the figures and prospects forecast sunny
skies ahead. |
