Pocket Open Skies: Calling for a Fair Deal, not a "toothless" exercise

Philippine Daily Inquirer
by Fair Trade Alliance - Philippines on Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 8:04pm

The Philippines needs safeguards to ensure effectiveness and substantive value:

 Any grant of air traffic entitlements must be reciprocal.

 Entitlements to be granted must be only for operations between an airline’s home state and the Philippines, not between the Philippines and a third country (a.k.a. 5th/6th/7th freedom rights) unless Philippine carriers are able to obtain the same market access opportunities.

 Only foreign airlines which have used or nearly exhausted their existing entitlements granted under bilateral air agreements could be given more entitlements. Priority should be given to the utilization of existing entitlements, of which there are reportedly millions of unused seat capacities available (as cited during recent congressional hearings).

 Entitlements may only be granted to airlines of countries that have not imposed any trade restrictions in recent years that affect Philippine air carriers, e.g., no operating bans/blacklists or downgradings of safety/security status;  no reports of governments denying applications by Philippine carriers without reasonable basis;  no reports of discrimination in market access between Philippines vs. foreign airlines. 

 If, after two years of operation, it is demonstrated that tourist arrivals from a foreign airline’s home state have not increased by more than 50% overall, or by numbers equivalent to least 60% of the additional air seat capacity introduced by the grantee airline, then the granted entitlements shall be suspended.  If the granted entitlements were incorporated into a bilateral aviation agreement, then such agreement shall be abrogated unilaterally by the Philippines.

 "Pocket open skies" should have as its  key underlying principle, the Constitutional provision (Article XII, Section 10) that:  “In the grant of rights, privileges, and concessions covering the national economy and patrimony, the State shall give preference to qualified Filipinos.”;  as well as the provision (Article XII, Section 12) that:  “The State shall promote the preferential use of Filipino labor, domestic materials and locally produced goods, and adopt measures that help make them competitive”.

 Any grant of entitlements must not adversely affect Filipino jobs in the Philippine aviation industry, or lead to the loss of labor rights and privileges for Filipinos.

 Any grant of entitlements must ensure that equal, if not preferential, privileges are given to airline companies in which Filipinos make up the majority of their total labor force.

 Due diligence must be undertaken to avoid having foreign airlines with dummy operations in the Philippines, i.e., using the name and identity of a Philippine air carrier to operate a service to, from or within the Philippines, while the substantive portion of its business is conducted from a foreign country by a labor force and management team composed largely of non-Filipinos.

 "Pocket open skies" require that national and/or local governments prioritize the development of airport infrastructure to support the targeted increase in tourism and ensure maximum adherence to safety and public convenience. Such as: (1) Construction of a full-fledged international terminal at Clark with multiple airbridge gates, along with a second runway to allow for parallel take-offs and landings (the existing second runway at Clark, which is too close to the first runway, must be converted to a taxiway instead), and of such length as to allow for take-offs of Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-400 and B747-8 long-range aircraft at full payload, (2) construction of high-speed rail and road access linking the Clark terminal directly to the population centers in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, and (3) construction of new airport and terminal facilities in Bohol, Aklan province, Palawan, Bicol and other key tourist destinations.

Our country’s unbridled ‘open skies’ policy is neither fair nor balanced for the local aviation industry in particular and the national economy in general. What FairTrade is pushing for is a “calibrated and step-by-step liberalization” of the industry, a liberalization process supportive of the modernization and expansion of the domestic aviation and ancillary industries based on thorough assessment of existing air agreements and within the framework of an Omnibus Aviation Industry Development Plan - not a sweeping and mindless liberalization, much less surrender of our options and national interest.

Like the Philippine islands and the seas around them, our skies are part of our national patrimony.