PAL, Cebu Pacific, Zest Air granted add’l flight capacity to S.Korea

MANILA, Philippines – The aviation regulator has awarded to to 3 local carriers — Philippine Airlines (PAL), Cebu Pacific, and Zest Air — the right to add a total of 9,500 seats per week to South Korea, the Philippines’ largest tourism market.  

In a recent phone interview, Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) executive director Carmelo Arcilla said these new bilateral seat entitlements were negotiated between the air panels of both countries last April.
 
“We already awarded the entitlements to Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines (PAL) and Zest Air,” said Arcilla. CAB designates to the local players the new capacity agreed during the bilateral talks.

The CAB official said the seat entitlements were parceled out to the 3 carriers as follows:

• PAL – “over 3,000 seats”
• Cebu Pacific – “over 3,000 seats”
• Zest Air – “about 2,000 seats”

Seat entitlements

The airlines were granted seat entitlements lower than what they individually applied for.
 
Gokongwei-led Cebu Pacific has earlier asked for an additional 3,780 weekly seat entitlements weak on top of their existing allocation of 5,670.

Cebu Pacific’s total flights stand at 29 times weekly. The additional seats granted to Cebu Pacific are equivalent to 21 flights a week or an additional 3 daily flights.

Currently, the budget carrier operates the Manila-Incheon route twice daily; daily flights for Cebu-Incheon, four weekly flights for Manila-Busan route and another four-weekly flight for Cebu-Busan route.
 
On the other hand, PAL, now under the management of conglomerate San Miguel Corp., sought for an additional 3,500 seats per week.

The legacy carrier currently has the biggest capacity in the routes between Philippine destinations and the South Korea. It utilizes 7,550 seats per week.
 
Zest Air applied for 5,596 seats per week on top of the 2,700 seats per week allocation previously granted to the carrier.

Tourism and air talks
 
Airline business between Philippines and South Korea has been brisk, with tourists as the main passengers. The Philippines is the nearest tropical destination with English-speaking citizens closest to South Korea, a rich neighbor in the north.

“Tourists from Korea are our biggest market. Last year, we had about 925,000 Korean arrivals in the country and we see that increasing to one million this year,” added Arcilla.

Last April, the Philippines and South Korea agreed to amend their existing air pact by expanding the number of entitlements of designated carriers of each country by half or an additional 9,500-weekly seats.
 
From 19,000-weekly seat entitlements being utilized by carriers on both sides, the new total is now at 28,500 seats per week for each country, said Arcilla.
 
The CAB is part of the Philippine air panel which negotiates for bilateral traffic rights with other countries. Also part of the panel are representatives of other government units that have stakes in the economic and infrastructure aspects of the commercial aviation business, including the Department of Transportation and Communications, Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Tourism, Department of Trade and Industry. – Rappler.com