RP, S. Korea agree to new air pact

RP, S. Korea agree to new air pact

Associated Press, Manila

The Philippines and South Korea, hoping to perk up tourism in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., have negotiated a new air agreement allowing each side to increase weekly flights between Manila and Seoul from 13 to 16, a Philippine official said Saturday.

Under the new agreement, which was concluded in Seoul Thursday after two days of talks, Korean Airlines and Asiana Airlines could fly a maximum 5,200 passengers weekly using large Boeing jumbo jets, said Foreign Undersecretary Franklin Ebdalin.

Ebdalin noted that Philippine Airlines, currently the only commercial airline flying to South Korea, uses Airbus jets or smaller Boeing planes that carry fewer passengers.

In June, the Civil Aeronautics Board allowed Cebu Pacific Air to fly to South Korea, but the airline hasn't announced when this will begin. Cebu Pacific said it was negotiating to lease three B757 jets, which also are smaller than jumbos, for international flights.

Ebdalin said Philippine negotiators in the air talks were pushing for greater flight capacity rather than frequency, but the Koreans refused.

"So that it would be equal and to balance it, what we wanted was that the entitlement be expressed in terms of seat capacity not frequency because with frequency ... it would be a question of having bigger planes," Ebdalin said.

He said the Philippine Department of Transportation and Communication, the lead agency in the air talks, accepted the terms out of concern for increasing tourism.

"There will be more tourists in the sense that there will be additional flights. That's all, but we don't know what the effects would be on Philippine Airlines," he said.

He said that based on last year's statistics, there are only about 158,000 Korean tourists that visit the Philippines yearly.

With increased frequency, including an additional flight in the summer, plus their bigger aircraft, Korean carriers could carry more than double that number, Ebdalin said. He added that the Koreans would get the difference from passengers from third countries, particularly the U.S., who would be traveling to the Philippines.

He said the Philippine Airlines could not compete with the Korean carriers' lower fares for this market because unlike them, it has not received financial assistance from the government to tide it over the current crisis.

The global air travel industry took a dive in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

The Philippines is suffering more from the decline because of terrorist activities in the south where a Muslim extremist group is still holding hostage a U.S. couple seized from a resort island in May along with another American and 17 Filipinos.