Aviation

PAL Flies To US Despite Category 2

Philippine Airlines will continue to fly to the United States (US), although under certain restrictions, despite the downgrading of the country to a Category 2 rating by the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA).
PAL President Jaime Bautista said: “Being the only Philippine carrier to fly to the US, we have a responsibility to our passengers to maintain our US operations in spite of the Category 2 rating.”
All local airlines will be affected by the Category 2 rating which requires PAL to maintain a status quo of its current service to the US.
“We lament FAA’s decision. We will do everything we can so our loyal trans-Pacific passengers will not be inconvenienced by any effect of Category 2,” Bautista stressed.
Under Category 2, PAL is prohibited from increasing its 33 flights a week to the US and its territories and from changing the type or increasing the number of aircraft being used on these routes. Also to be affected is the delivery, beginning 2009, of six brand-new Boeing 777-300ER airplanes, to be deployed by PAL on the trans-Pacific flights.
The PAL President also expressed concern on the negative effect of Category 2 to PAL’s plan to open service to San Diego, Chicago, New York and Saipan.
Bautista added, “We hope the ATO will soon be able to rectify the assessed deficiencies in its air safety oversight functions so the country can revert to Category 1.”
While the FAA rating reflects its assessment of the ATO’s compliance to international safety standards and not on the local airline, Bautista said PAL had always adhered to those standards as proven by PAL being the only Philippine carrier to pass the strict IATA (International Air Transport Association) Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), an international evaluation system designed to assess operational management and control system of an airline.
According to the PAL president, PAL’s airplanes are currently maintained by Lufthansa Technik Philippines, an affiliate of the world’s largest maintenance service provider - Lufthansa Technik of Germany.
Aside from withholding PAL’s expansion plan to the US, the Category 2 rating is also expected to gravely affect inbound tourism traffic (including the balikbayan traffic that is PAL’s niche market), RP-US cargo traffic and investments inflow to the Philippines.
PAL currently flies to Los Angeles (11 flights a week), San Francisco (9), Las Vegas via Vancouver (5), Honolulu (3) and Guam (5).
PAL will only be permitted to add a flight or route if it wetleases an aircraft from an airline coming from a Category 1 country, as PAL did back in the mid-1990’s. Under a wetlease agreement, PAL is charged for the use of another carrier’s aircraft, its crew, maintenance and insurance cost. /MP