THE Philippine air panel was granted two more passenger flight entitlements to Vancouver in Canada, members of the panel said Monday.

From the current five flight entitlements awarded to Philippine Airlines (PAL), the only airline in the country which mounts flights to Canada, the flag carrier is now permitted to fly to Vancouver to seven times weekly.

“For the passenger side, the Philippines was awarded two flight frequencies, which are equivalent to two flight entitlements,” said Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) president Victor Jose Luciano.

PAL originally asked the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) to lobby for 14 weekly flights in order for PAL to service Manila-Vancouver twice daily.

The additional entitlements can help the flag carrier mount more flights and eventually operate to the East Coast, and even possibly revive its San Diego route. “This will allow us flexibility so that we may service other destinations,” PAL president Jaime Bautista said.

But he still expressed disappointment because PAL got only two additional flight entitlements.

Luciano said the air panel lobbied for 14 up to 21 weekly flight entitlements but the Canadian air panel only agreed to grant two to the Philippines. PAL officials did not comment when sought for reaction. “There were some issues that have not been resolved so there were only two passenger flight entitlements that were granted to us,” added Luciano.

According to Luciano, the Canadian government was seeking for a third-country code sharing arrangement but the RP air panel opposed this. “Our air panel did not agree to this because it will be disadvantageous to our airlines. We have no alliance with other foreign airlines,” he said.

Under a third-country code sharing arrangement, Canada will be allowing other foreign airlines to use the entitlements to mount flights to and from Manila-Vancouver.

According to industry officials, the negative effects of adopting such a one-sided and short-sighted policy can now be seen. For instance, Tiger Airways, Hongkong Airlines and Asiana Airlines were given unilateral permits to fly the routes Macau-Clark, Hong Kong-Clark and Seoul-Clark, respectively.

But when two Filipino airlines applied for permits to operate from Clark to Macau, Hong Kong and Korea, their applications were denied by the governments of these destinations.

Luciano said a second part of the RP-Canada air talks will take place in the next six months. “This was just the initial phase,” he said. Under the first air services agreement between the Philippines and Canada, PAL and the designated airline of Canada were entitled to field up to four flights per week in each direction.

While Canada’s flag carrier, Air Canada, has yet to launch its maiden flight into the Philippines, PAL, on the other hand, has used up all of the flight entitlements awarded to the Philippine government by Canada under their first air agreement that was signed in January 1997.

“Originally, there are four entitlements only. We borrowed one from Air Canada so that makes five now. But we want to fly to Canada at least twice a day,” Bautista had said.

IF discussions on the wage hike were not done in May, workers would have benefited more and even would have had a shot at increasing wages to as much as P50 per day.

THE private sector is pushing for the establishment of a “clear-cut” and “coherent” policy on rice hoarding to make it more attractive for companies to import rice into the Philippines.

A government think tank pushed for the crafting of “temporary measures” and the development of the local automotive parts industry to enable the auto industry to cope with the impending full liberalization under the Asean Free Trade Area (Afta) by 2010.

DAVAO CITY—A Makati-based Filipino mining company has asked the government to support its move in rescinding the joint venture to mine nickel in southern Davao Oriental, citing alleged lack of interest in its foreign partner to place the project in priority.

SEVERAL nongovernment organizations and multinational corporations (MNCs) belonging to the Coalition for Agricultural Development (Cfad) urged the United States government to help developing countries cope with a global food crisis by setting aside $600 million for the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) agricultural development program for fiscal year (FY) 2009.

THE Philippine air panel was granted two more passenger flight entitlements to Vancouver in Canada, members of the panel said Monday.

TAIWANESE experts urged the Philippine government to start investing more in research so it could exploit the vast potential of its duck industry, both for egg-laying and meat purposes.