THE PHILIPPINES got seven additional flights to Australia per week after air service talks between the two countries ended last week, a Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) official said yesterday.
“The parties agreed to have seven additional flights per week between the Philippines and Avalon Airport in Melbourne,” CAB Executive Director Carmelo L. Arcilla said in a text message yesterday.
The additional flights would increase the existing 6,000 seat entitlements per week between “any points in the Philippines and any points in Australia.”
“Increases in other points were deferred pending the final settlement of other outstanding issues,” Mr. Arcilla said, but did not elaborate.
The official said both parties “have agreed to talk again after three months.”
Prior to the talks in Canberra last week, both parties had negotiated in August last year in Manila.
Asked why the new entitlements were granted through flights and not through seats, the official only said: “[The flights] allow an airline to use different sizes of aircraft. The bigger the aircraft, the more passengers.”
The country is scheduled to hold air talks with Papua New Guinea on April 24-25 in Manila, and on May 15-16 in Sao Paulo in Brazil. It hopes to sign its first air service agreement with Latin America’s biggest country.
Australia, Papua New Guinea and Brazil were shortlisted as priorities for air talks this year. Others were Canada, France, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Russia, and Taiwan, Mr. Arcilla said in January.
The government had six air talks last year, but only negotiations with South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Thailand were successful, giving the country and its counterparts more seat entitlements.
Executive Order 29, signed by President Benigno S. C. Aquino III on March 14, 2011 authorized the CAB and negotiators to “pursue more aggressively the international civil aviation liberalization policy” with respect to airports outside Metro Manila.
Source: Cliff Harvey C. Venzon, BusinessWorld. 22 April 2013.
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