http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/natio ... iclan.html
BORACAY TOURISM SUFFERS AS AIR CARRIERS PULL OUT OF CATICLAN
STARTING Thursday, major carriers are expected to discontinue flights to Caticlan, the gateway to the resort island of Boracay, in anticipation of a government order aimed at implementing a long-ignored rule on a one-takeoff and one-landing procedure.
Sources who attended a hearing between airlines and the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) on Wednesday said the new order will virtually leave only one carrier, Southeast Asian Airlines, plying the route.
Francisco Yngente, vice president for airport services of Philippine Airlines (PAL), confirmed to the BusinessMirror that the carrier would be flying all Caticlan-bound passengers to Kalibo instead, the capital of Aklan.
“Yes, it’s true we’re no longer flying to Caticlan starting [today]. The CAAP shortened the useable runway, so we’re shifting all our flights to Caticlan to Kalibo until further notice.” PAL, in the meantime, will shoulder the land-transfer expense of passengers who had booked Caticlan flights. Sources said Cebu Pacific was reducing flights to Caticlan to only two daily. Since June 25, it has already rerouted 10 of its 12 daily flights to Kalibo, aside from its regular two to three Manila-Kalibo flights a day using Airbus A320s. The flights to Caticlan are via the 72-seater ATR turboprop 72-500.
As for Zest Air, all its Caticlan flights have been diverted to Kalibo since June 25 as well, according to a source in the airline.
Previously, PAL had been flying its newly acquired 50-seater Bombardier turboprops to Caticlan seven to eight times a day from Manila, plus one flight a day from Cebu. It also flies twice daily from Manila to Kalibo using a 150-seater Airbus A320s.
He added that “this is so sudden, we were caught off-guard. But our pilots had a meeting with CAAP [yesterday] and they were already formally advised of the ruling.”
Sources at the CAAP meeting told the BusinessMirror the government agency began meeting with air carriers after a Zest Airplane overshot the Caticlan runway on June 25, the second accident using its Chinese-made MA60 planes in six months. The first accident in January was an undershooting of the runway, and resulted in injuries to passengers.
“The problem is really the size of the planes that are being used,” said one source who requested anonymity. Most planes are too big to navigate the very short runway in Caticlan. Under the CAAP order, all planes can only take off and land from the sea. At present, most carriers land toward or take off from the mountainside.
Asked for a reaction, Avelino Zapanta, president of Seair, said the airline was not affected by the CAAP ruling. Given the size of its planes, pilots can fly or take off coming from the sea. “We will continue flying to Caticlan,” he said.
Asked whether they weren’t being unduly penalized because of the mishap that happened to Zest Air, Yngente said, “As long as it’s for the safety of the passengers, I suppose CAAP is correct in implementing the ruling.”
Other airline sources said CAAP presented its findings that despite “corrective measures” on the part of pilots navigating the short runway of Caticlan, and given the present layout of the land which includes a mountain, plus the tailwinds and headwinds factors, “the planes will be left with only about 250 meters on the runway, which is too short” for the larger planes.
One source explained that CAAP is cracking down on violators of the airline industry publication (AIP) due to “criticisms that it was not enforcing regulations, and that we are still under Category 2 by the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration].” The Ninoy Aquino International Airport and the Air Transportation Office (ATO), forerunner of the CAAP, was downgraded by FAA from Category 1 status, denoting its safety for international airlines, to Category 2 two years ago due to the ATO’s lax regulatory measures and lack of adequate personnel.
Yngente said PAL doesn’t have plans at the moment to buy new or smaller planes to keep flying to Caticlan. “Our recommendation to CAAP is actually to level off the mountain at the end of the runway, and on the other end, extend the runway.” Plans to extend and expand the Caticlan runway had been proposed since 2000, but no funds have been raised by the government nor the private sector to undertake it.