Airline woes

There are five things to conclude from Wednesday’s Senate hearing of more than four hours on passengers’ complaints against Cebu Pacific (and the other airlines) for overbooking, offloading and booking glitches, per Senate Resolution 575 of Senator Nancy Binay.

These are:

One, the two major domestic airlines, Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines, are apologetic for the travel woes of their passengers. But they are not largely to blame, they claimed. So don’t expect a significant improvement in the service of Cebu Pacific, PAL and Air Asia.

No. 1 to blame is the Pratt and Whitney engine maker whose engines power the aircraft of the two carriers. Because of the sudden surge in air travel and the huge number of planes that were mothballed during two years of the pandemic, Pratt and Whitney has been overwhelmed with demand for maintenance and repair work for their engines.

It now takes up to 220 days for an aircraft engine to be serviced, triple from the ideal 60 days. This setup has reduced Cebu Pacific’s flights by 7 percent.

On a normal day, Cebu Pacific flies up to 60,000 passengers (22 million passengers divided by 365 days); 7 percent of that means 4,200 passengers displaced daily by the prolonged engine servicing delays by Pratt and Whitney.

Two, there is no single specific government agency for ordinary citizens to lodge complaints against erring airlines, stores, banks, public utilities and scammers.

There is no law that empowers a government agency to handle such complaints, enumerating penalties and guidelines against the erring entities, and the procedure and timeline for handling such complaints. We don’t have a strong Consumer Protection Law.

Instead, said Sen. Bato dela Rosa, whose wife, kid and grandchildren as young as two were victimized by Cebu Pacific on a recent flight to Japan (they were seated too far from each other despite having paid for adjacent seats), “people simply complain to Tulfo.”

He was probably referring to broadcaster, now congressman Erwin Tulfo whose ETOA has more than 1.24 million subscribers. His program entertains all kinds of complaints, including a wife’s lament about the husband’s erectile disfunction.

There is an Air Passenger Bill of Rights that has a litany of rights but these are not writ in stone, like in a solid law, merely in an government memo.  There are no penalties for violation of passengers’ rights. If a fine is to be imposed, the maximum is P5,000. This is for an airline business that makes $1 billion a year.

Three, the airlines have been grossly unprepared for the huge surge in air travel. At NAIA in 2019, more than 41 million passengers took flights. That will be exceeded this year.

The number of Filipinos making local air trips already exceeds 30 million, three times the number of foreign tourists.

Four, Cebu Pacific and PAL have ten million more passengers than they can handle. PAL has ten million passengers; Cebu has 22 million. Yet, more than 40 million want to fly. It has become a seller’s market. The carriers are charging as much as the market can bear. A flight to Boracay costs P15,000; to Palawan as high as P25,000. Those flights of less than an hour cost less than 50 euros in Europe.

Five, why the extortionate ticket prices matched by lousy service? The airlines do not have enough planes and manpower. And the Philippines, an archipelago of 7,600 islands, does not have enough airports.

The Philippines should have 300 decent airports. Today, only 20 airports can service a jet plane.

“We are always guided by the Air Passenger Bill of Rights, and have adhered to the prescribed policies and rules, especially on matters that affect our customers and passengers,” Cebu Pacific Air president Alexander Lao told the Senate tourism committee of Nancy Binay yesterday.

Lao recited the Hail Mary of an ideal airline: “We remain committed to our mission of providing safe, reliable and affordable air transportation.”

“The global aviation industry has been impacted by Pratt and Whitney engine issues, which power Airbus A321/A320 NEO aircraft. The PW engines are experiencing premature removal from service and each engine restoration requires 220 days instead of the industry norm of 90 days.”

Premature servicing forced some of their vehicles to be under maintenance for a month instead of one day.

More than 120 aircraft worldwide are currently grounded due to this issue.  Cebu had already encountered 12 impromptu engine removals this year and were forced to ground three Airbus A321/A320 NEOs indefinitely since the middle of March.

The airlines in the Philippines began to feel the crunch since March 2023.  That month, on-time departure and arrival was 80 percent of flights.

The acceptable online punctuality standard is less than 15 percent of flights can be delayed. Today, more than 20 percent of flights are delayed.

Cebu Pacific also encountered delays from Airbus, “our aircraft manufacturer,” complained Lao.

“Global supply chain issues are further worsening the situation and causing additional delays in aircraft deliveries. As a result, we have experienced delays ranging from two to five months for our scheduled (aircraft) deliveries in 2023,” he said.

Cebu Pacific suffered from “Aircraft on Ground (AOG),” aircraft that are grounded and which require additional time for restoration.

Also, Red Lightning Alerts (RLA) have become prevalent and are longer in duration during this year. Cebu Pacific had 78 RLAs in April to June, affecting 535 flights. Some of these RLAs take up to two and half to three hours, which require stoppage of operations.

“These are the realities that frame Cebu Pacific’s current operations. We are taking all possible steps to address the issues that are global in impact, such as reducing flight schedules, acquiring additional aircraft for greater resilience and enhancing our customer care and recovery policy,” the young CEB Pacific president assured.

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