Raymond Fortun to sue Cebu Pacific for lack of compassion

MANILA, Philippines – After budget airline Cebu Pacific canceled Raymond Fortun’s flight without any warning, the well-known lawyer threatened to take the case to court.

“See you in court. Send your best, it ain’t gonna matter,” he tells the airline.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, November 19, Fortun said he and his family planned a trip to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam during the APEC week. He hoped he would be able to fly home on the 19th so he checked with Cebu Pacific to make sure. After receiving an e-mail on November 15 that he could check in online for his return flight, he assumed it was “still a go.”

A list of cancellations from November 17 also showed that his flight was not cancelled. (READ: Cancelled flights due to APEC meetings in November)

To his surprise, Fortun found out his flight was cancelled only when he and his family arrived at the airport. He said the staff claimed he was sent an e-mail informing him of the cancellation, but he wrote that he received nothing.

“We’re stuck here in Saigon now and incurring expenses,” Fortun wrote. Other than the financial cost of the cancellation, he wrote how he had to cancel plans. His son, whom he had to convince to join the trip, was “despondent” at the possibility of his music teacher being “furious with him.”

Fortun’s post, as of writing, has gained more than 26,000 likes and 7,000 shares on Facebook, with many netizens lauding the lawyer for standing up against the airline.

Lack of compassion, professionalism

What struck Fortun, however, was the “lack of professionalism and compassion” in the company. 

Fortun questioned the necessity of the cancellations when he said Clark International Airport could have just as well been used. Public figures like Dick Gordon and Martin Romualdez were proponents of using Clark to ease air traffic congestion in Metro Manila. (READ: Gordon, Romualdez: Use Subic, Clark airports)

“What aches (his) heart,” he said, was seeing the passengers in the same cancelled flight – because while his family could incur the expenses, the others could not.

“CebPac did not even have the professionalism to provide for temporary shelter and for meals until they provide for a return flight,” he wrote, “How could they do this to their fellow Filipinos in a foreign land?”

Fortun’s promise to sue included a reminder to Cebu Pacific: “Maybe if your incompetence is exposed, you will realize that ‘providing a service to the public’ requires something else: compassion.”

Cebu Pacific is the Philippines’ largest budget airline. Cebu Pacific and Cebgo flew 5.97 million passengers in the first 4 months of 2015.

‘We’re sorry’

In a statement posted in its Twitter account, Cebu Pacific gave a public apology to all inconvenienced passengers.

“CEB sincerely apologizes to passengers with cancelled flights, who still received a system generated email prompting them to check in online. The email message was automatically sent to all passengers with flights departing within 72 hours. This resulted in some passengers going to the airport, despite their flight being cancelled,” the airline explained.

Cebu Pacific reminded passengers, even those who already checked in for their flights online, to check its list of cancelled flights before heading to the airport.

This is not the first time the airline had incurred public wrath because of its flight cancellations. In January 2015, Cebu Pacific was fined P52.11 million ($1.1 million) for its flight delays during the Christmas holidays which affected 10,400 passengers from December 24 to 26, 2014.

The airline blamed air traffic congestion for the delays but the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) said this was not supported by facts. – Rappler.com

*$1 = P47.04