US seen lifting restrictions on PH airlines

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) has struck an initial agreement with American aviation regulators to remove possibly by November the restrictions that prevent local carriers from expanding flights in the United States, director general William Hotchkiss III said.

Hotchkiss said the agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration would allow the lifting of the country’s category 2 status and upgrading to category 1 after a final FAA “assessment” has been conducted.

However, included in the agreement was a two-year program similar to a probation where FAA officials would fly in and out of the country “to address the sustainability aspect”, Hotchkiss said.

“We will get lifting supposedly by November but that does not mean it will be permanently lifted,” he said. “There might be some retrogression and we don’t want that to happen. So to make sure, they will be [coming] here for [the next] two years.”

Hotchkiss added that the European aviation regulators were also in the country and would be here until June 7 to validate recent positive results from an audit by the International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao).  They are here to determine whether the Philippines should be removed from the European Union blacklist, he said.

These events are unfolding as CAAP deals with the situation at the Davao International Airport, where a Cebu Pacific plane landed off course, blocking one runway and shutting down the Mindanao gateway since Sunday night.

But instead of hurting the Philippines’s chances with EU air regulators, Hotchkiss noted that the CAAP’s handling of the issue actually bolstered the country’s chances of getting an upgrade.

CAAP took a tough approach against Cebu Pacific, owned by the Gokongwei family, as officials during a press conference yesterday noted that they were evaluating sanctions against the budget carrier. They also said that the crew likely violated protocol by not evacuation passengers immediately and early investigation results pointed to pilot error.

A Cebu Pacific spokesperson did not immediately respond for comment on Tuesday.

“As far as I am concerned, [the Davao incident] will strengthen CAAP’s stature in front of the EU. It means we have the capacity to enforce our regulations,” Hotchkiss said. “In fact, this was the main stumbling block for the FAA downgrade and  EU ban: The capacity of the Republic of the Philippines to enforce safety oversight.”

The decision of the EU air regulators will not be known until after June 7.

The EU ban has been in place since 2010, a year after the Icao found “significant safety concerns” in the country’s aviation standards. The Philippines passed the Icao audit in February. The FAA downgraded the Philippines from Category 1 status to Category 2 in 2008, meaning local carriers were banned from adding new routes to the United States.