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Philippine carriers campaign against Gulf airlines expanding their footprint in Manila
June 2nd 2017
Like the rest of the region, the Philippines have not been spared from the continuous onslaught of Middle Eastern carriers eating into the yield and market share of its local airlines. Read More »
Philippine Airlines (PAL) and Cebu Pacific Air (CEB) in recent weeks announced significant route cancellations to the Gulf, including flights to Doha, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait.
Enough is enough, PAL president Jaime Bautista said this week as new bilateral air traffic talks between the Philippine and Qatar governments began.
“Our position is that there should be no additional flights, just like our position during the last air talks,” Bautista said. “There is overcapacity now to the Middle East.”
“It would be inconsistent and discriminatory for the government to now take a different approach and allow UAE airlines to expand to Manila. Congestion will be worsened, not just in terms of runway movements but also more passengers coursing through NAIA's overburdened terminals," it said in a statement. "If airlines like Emirates and Etihad are so bent on putting up more flights to the Philippines then they should fly to Davao instead,” PAL suggested.
In May, PAL announced the termination of its three times a week Manila-Abu Dhabi A330-300 route from July. It advised affected passengers could rebook to Dubai free of charge from where they would be free bus shuttles to Abu Dhabi.
The situation at CEB is worse. The archipelago’s largest carrier will suspend its four-weekly Manila-Kuwait A330-300 route on June 13, while the carrier’s thrice-weekly Manila-Doha and Manila-Riyadh A330 routes will be axed from July 1 and July 2, respectively.
This leaves CEB with a nearly non-existent long-haul network. Going forward, the only remaining long-haul destinations in the budget carrier’s network will be Sydney and Dubai.
Just last year CEB placed a top-up order for two additional single-class A330-300s to boost its long-haul network, joining the six A330s already in the fleet.
"The entry of Cebu Pacific into these markets benefitted passengers with lower fares and more choices. Of late, other carriers have aggressively added more flights, which has resulted in substantial oversupply of seats and fares that are so low, hence making the routes unsustainable," Atty JR Mantaring, vice-president for corporate affairs at CEB, commented.
“We have to continuously review our routes to ensure their viability. At this point, it makes more sense for us to re-deploy the aircraft used for our Riyadh, Doha and Kuwait service to routes where we can further stimulate demand and sustain our low fare offers,” Mantaring said. CEB is expected to redeploy its widebodies to Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, Bangkok and Tokyo.
