“The board made recommendations to allot flight entitlements to both airlines to fly to Malaysia out of Clark. We are still finalizing entitlements that are to be awarded to other airlines to mount flights from Manila,” said CAB executive director Carmelo Arcilla in an interview.
Based on recommendations drawn up on Thursday last week, AirAsia will be able to mount Clark-Kuala Lumpur flights from the 1,260 weekly seat entitlements.
Seair’s application for entitlements to Malaysia totaling to 5,400 weekly seats was also approved by the CAB.
The board recommended that Seair be given 2,520 seats per week to mount flights between Clark and Kuala Lumpur; 1,260 seats per week to be utilized for flights between Clark and Kota Kinabalu; 540 seats per week to Kuching; another 540 seats to Penang; and the same number of seats to Langkawi.
Arcilla said the board will continue to discuss other applications of airlines who sought for entitlements to service Manila-KL-Manila route.
AirphilExpress has a pending application for 1,260 weekly seat entitlements to fly the Manila-KL route.
The airline is also interested to fly to other points in Malaysia other than KL. It asked the CAB to grant it 720 seat entitlements.
Cebu Pacific (CEB), meanwhile, applied for additional 720 seats per week. The airline unit of JG Summit is currently mounting 10 weekly flights for the Manila-KL route. This translates to 1,800 seats a week.
CEB vice president for marketing and distribution Candice Iyog earlier said the low-cost carrier intends to mount twice daily flights within the year. The twice-a-day flights are equivalent to 2,520 weekly seats.
The Philippines and Malaysia amended on June 8 their air services agreement. From 2,300 weekly seats, both air panels agreed to increase this by 2,520 more seats.
The air panel of both countries also agreed on unlimited traffic rights to airports outside of Manila, in keeping with the spirit of Executive Order (EO) 29, the policy implementing an open sky policy.
Arcilla said the RP-Malaysia air services agreement is the first air pact sealed for the year. “Also, this is the first grant of unlimited traffic rights to our secondary gateways outside of Manila under EO 29,” added the CAB head.
The CAB is part of the Philippine air panel which negotiates for traffic rights with other countries. The other panel members include the departments of Transportation and Communications, Foreign Affairs, Tourism, Trade and Industry, and representatives from airline companies.
