Manila: The European Commission (EC), which has allowed planes of Philippine air operators to travel to Europe, will assess the safety of flights that are still blacklisted, a senior officials said, adding this will boost airline revenues, Philippine tourism, including code-sharing arrangements of Philippine-registered airlines and international carriers that ferry overseas Filipino workers worldwide.
“EC representatives are coming to the Philippines from April 14 to 24, to look into these developments and hopefully lift the ban on all other blacklisted planes operated by Philippine airlines,” said General Beda Badiola, assistant director of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), the country’s regulatory body.
Explaining his optimism, Badiola said, “There were positive results during the meeting of CAAP and EC representatives in Brussels last week.”
“The safety assessments of Philippine airline companies and the CAAP have reached international standards, to EC’s satisfaction,” said Badiola, adding that EC’s safety assessments will also include fleet age of Philippine planes plying local and international routes, including their high-end and budget flights.
Cebu Pacific Air planes that fly to Asian destinations have an average age of 17 months; and Philippine Airlines, the country’s flagship carrier, eight years, other sources said.
Explaining the impact of this development to Philippine tourist tourism, Badiola said Philippine-licensed planes are the only ones allowed to service local destinations that bring in tourists who come in from international flights. “Earlier questions about safety of local flights have been targets of international travel advisories, which damaged Philippine tourism,” he added.
In 2014, EC allowed Cebu Air Inc, the budget airline company of Cebu Pacific, to send planes to Europe. In July 2013, EC allowed Philippine Airlines (PAL) to fly to Europe.
Before these positive developments, the Philippine aviation industry has had tortuous setbacks.
In 2010, EC banned Philippine carriers because of their failure to comply with international safety standards.
EC’s ban was influenced by negative safety assessments of the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) in 2009, and the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) in 2008.
It was only in 2008 when Philippine Congress passed a law to reform the country’s civil aviation industry and called for the establishment of the CAAP as an independent regulatory body, which resulted in the dissolution of Air Transportation Office (ATO), an agency marred by officials’ political agendas, that things started to look up for the industry.
Since then, PAL and Cebu Air also began implementing their respective safety measures.
