Cebu Pac insists cancellations due to operational issues

Budget airline Cebu Pacific told government investigators that manpower issues such as absenteeism and poaching of its crew were not the cause of a recent wave of flight cancellations that affected thousands of passengers.

In the hearing yesterday, Cebu Pacific executives claimed the cancellations were due to operational issues that were affecting the timing of its flights, Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) executive director Carmelo Arcilla said in an interview.

“We asked them point blank about manpower issues but they denied it,” said Arcilla, who added that the CAB was seeking additional information and that another hearing was set for next week.

“Cebu Pacific said it was about their on-time performance,” he added. “It’s still too early to tell and there are still a lot of questions to be answered.”

A Cebu Pacific spokesperson declined to comment as the CAB had already begun its investigation.

Arcilla said the airline called the cancellations necessary to improve its on-time performance. Based on industry standards, a flight is on time if it leaves within 15 minutes of the scheduled departure time.

On-time performance fluctuates and typically drops during the peak summer and Christmas travel periods, in part, due to congestion in busy hubs such as the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).

Cebu Pacific recorded an average on-time performance of about 67 percent last year, information on its website showed.

“They presented to us certain technical processes that contributed to their on-time performance,” said Arcilla, who declined to elaborate saying the data needed to be reviewed and validated.

The Inquirer earlier reported an uptick in absenteeism among flight crew as among the reasons for the cancellations, which have run up to over 160 flights over a two week period, affecting some 22,000 passengers.

Cebu Pacific’s cancellations hit about 10 flights a day, a small percentage of its 400 daily flights.

Apart from cabin crew, sources also pointed to the poaching of Cebu Pacific pilots by Chinese and other foreign carriers—an industry-wide issue—as a contributing factor.

Cebu Pacific had pushed back against this narrative. Its recently formed cabin crew union, known as Juan Wing Association of the Philippines, voiced its support for the airline’s management via its official Facebook page.

Juan Wing said its members would not be granting any interviews at this time, saying its “priority” was the completion of talks with management for better pay and benefits.

Arcilla said the CAB would explore all angles in its investigation, while making clear that the problem was unlikely attributable to gateways such as Naia despite its congestion woes.