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SINGAPORE
has asked the Philippines for an increase in flight
entitlements to service
Manila.
The
Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) instead offered
entitlements to Clark, Cebu and Davao because the
international airport in Manila is already saturated.
“They
want more flights to
Manila.
We, however, are willing to give them many rights
outside
Manila
because we are already experiencing congestion in our
international airport in Manila,” said CAB director
Carmelo Arcilla in a telephone interview.
The
Philippines can give Singapore 5,000 entitlements to
service Clark. It could also increase Singapore’s
existing 288 rights to fly to Cebu.
“During
the air talks last week, we were convincing them to
accept our offer for them to operate our developmental
routes. . .But what they want is increase in the Manila
flights for 5,000 more rights on top of the 8,700
entitlements,” said Arcilla.
For now,
he said the
Philippines
could not accommodate Singapore’s request. “We do not
want the congestion problem in
Manila
to worsen because it might raise safety issues.”
A second
round of air talks will be scheduled but no definite
date has been set.
Arcilla
said the
Philippines
does not want anything in return because local airlines
have yet to fully utilize the entitlements allotted to
the
Philippines.
“More than half of the 8,700 rights are utilized. So, we
still have more room to fly to Singapore. We still have
sufficient entitlements.”
Cebu
Pacific, for instance, is seeking the nod of the
Singaporean government to mount flights from
Clark four times
weekly.
The
Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in
Clark, Pampanga, caters to budget carriers, including
Asiana Air Lines of Korea, Air Asia Berhad of Malaysia,
Tiger Airways of Singapore and China Rich of Hong Kong.
Foreign
and local airlines operating in
Clark are currently allotted 8,700 seats per country, or a total
of 17,400 seats per week. In a year, the number
translates to 1.5 million seats.
Tiger
Air is currently the largest passenger airline operating
out of the DMIA and had previously committed to
expanding its services to include additional
destinations and expanded operations involving a
marketing arrangement with local Philippines-based
airline, SEAir.
Tiger
Air accounts for 51 percent, or 238,000, of the 470,000
total passengers at the DMIA in 2006. In August Tiger
Airways was allowed by the CAB to service its
Singapore-Clark-Macau route up to March of next year.
Tiger Air was awarded on September 2006 a five-year
foreign airline carrier’s permit.
The
airline is 49-percent owned by Singapore Airlines, 11
percent by Temasek Holdings, and the rest by Indigo
Partners of Ryan Air.
It is
expected that Tiger Air will increase its capacity once
a new air service agreement is signed between the
Philippines and Singapore. |
