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CLARK
FREE PORT— With the Philippine-New Zealand bilateral air
talks set to resume Tuesday in Manila, officials of the
state-run Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) said
they will lobby strongly for possible direct flights to
New Zealand via the Diosdado Macapagal International
Airport (DMIA) here.
“We will
definitely push hard to get flight entitlements for DMIA
so direct flights to New Zealand may become possible as
directed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,” CIAC
president and CEO Victor Jose Luciano said.
During
her state visit to the south-western Pacific country
recently, President Arroyo and New Zealand Prime
Minister Helen Clark agreed it was time an air services
agreement was forged between their countries.
This was
followed by the President’s statement before the
Filipino community in New Zealand that she “would like
to see them travel back to the Philippine for Christmas
aboard a direct flight from New Zealand.”
Philippine Ambassador to New Zealand Bienvenido Tejano
said, “This statement was welcomed enthusiastically by
the Filipinos and since that time, they have been making
queries on the progress of the Air Services Talks.”
The
Philippines is only one of few countries in the
Asia-Pacific that do not have an air services agreement
with New Zealand. As such, travelers between the two
countries have to go through connecting flights in a
third country such as Singapore or Hong Kong.
Air
negotiations between the Philippines and New Zealand
were held in Wellington on September 6 and 7 this year.
The talks, however, stalled after Filipino airline
representatives opposed New Zealand’s offer to introduce
fifth- and sixth-freedom traffic rights in the air
agreement.
CIAC
executive vice president and COO Alexander Cauguiran
said the inclusion of such traffic rights, which should
also be enjoyed by Filipino airlines, is being proposed
to make the opening of passenger flights between the two
countries more viable and profitable.
Cauguiran explained that fifth-freedom traffic rights
allow an airline to fly from its country of origin to
its country of destination and on to a third country
destination.
Luciano
and Cauguiran represent CIAC as regular members of the
RP Air Negotiating Panel along with officials from the
trade, tourism, transportation and foreign affairs
departments, and representatives of commercial airlines
in the country, including PAL and Cebu Pacific.
The
panel is chaired by DFA Undersecretary Franklin Ebdalin
supported by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) as panel
secretariat. New Zealand’s negotiating panel will be
headed by John Macilree, principal adviser for air
services of the Ministry of Transport.
New
Zealand Trade Minister Phil Goff said an air pact is
important to the fast-growing Filipino community in his
country and to the increasing number of New Zealanders
visiting the Philippines.
Goff
said about 6,000 to 7,000 New Zealand tourists visit the
Philippines annually while Filipinos traveling to
New Zealand
range from 12,000 to 13,000 per year. He said the
Filipino community in New Zealand has doubled to about
25,000 in the last five years.
Goff
said the
Philippines
is an important market for New Zealand, being its
10th-largest trading partner. |
