Local air carriers bat for increased accommodations for inbound passengers, nix cutdown on arrivals

The Air Carriers Association of the Philippines (ACAP) raised concern over the recent government decision to suspend the entry of foreign nationals and returning overseas Filipinos who are non-OFWs into the country and to limit the number of inbound international passengers to 1,500 a day, as this could further hurt the already distressed airline industry. 

During the Senate committee on banks and financial institutions’ hearing on the Government Financial Institutions Unified Initiatives to Distressed Enterprises for Economic Recovery (GUIDE) bill Wednesday, ACAP vice chairman Roberto Lim said the local aviation industry has incurred an estimated loss of P65 billion last year due to travel restriction amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lim added that local airlines have already terminated 33% of its employees, equivalent to about 5,000 workers.

“With the recent surge, there are again additional restrictions...,” he said.

He was referring to the National Task Force Against COVID-19’s (NTF) directive to suspend the entry of foreign nationals and returning non-OFWs as well as the reduction in international passenger arrivals at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to a maximum of 1,500 passengers per day. 

The said measures were aimed at preventing a further rise in COVID-19 cases and to prevent the entry of coronavirus variants from other countries.

Lim, however, said this is not the solution.

“The solution really is to provide more accommodation because we are now requiring a quarantine of five days which uses up the accommodation,” he said.

“The solution is [increasing] accommodation not cutting down airline capacity artificially,” he added.

Under the NTF’s directive, the following individuals are exempted from the entry ban:

• Holders of 9(c) visas
• Medical repatriation and their escort/s duly endorsed by the DFA-OUMWA or OWWA
• Distressed ROFs duly endorsed by DFA-OUMWA
• Emergency, humanitarian, and other analogous cases approved by the NTF-COVID-19

In a separate text message, Lim said there has been a shortage of rooms since international passengers are required to be quarantined for at least five days.

“Ideally, the government solution is to look and provide more rooms/enroll more hotels and facilities. But the approach has been to cut down international pax arrivals,” he told GMA News Online.

During the Senate hearing, Lim reiterated the local airlines’ appeal for government credit guarantee.

“We hope and urge the Senate to intervene in terms of loan guarantees, which is the easiest way to mitigate the issue,” he said, suggesting that his proposal could be added to the GUIDE bill.

“We look forward for the expanded version of the measure... for the Bureau of the Treasury, Land Bank of the Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines, and Department of Finance to provide us with loan guarantees so that private banks who are very skittish to lending more money to an injured industry will actually open their credit facility to us,” Lim said.

Local carriers earlier sought for the government to provide a credit guarantee scheme that guarantees the banking sector’s loans and credit lines, most of which are secured under collaterals, to remove its aversion to the poor credit risk of airline industry under the present operating environment. — RSJ, GMA News