The aviation industry yesterday urged government to work towards a roadmap for restarting the airlines’ international and domestic operations and recover from the severe impact of the pandemic.
“I can only speak for the private sector. We are calling on the government to work together towards a roadmap to restart international and domestic aviation. We have to start talking about the time the aviation will restart,” Samuel David, International Air Transport Association (IATA) country manager, said in a forum hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines.
David said it took the government overnight to shut down the operation of the aviation industry in March last year, but the industry needs more time to restart its business.
Recertification and trainings take a while. We do need a roadmap to restart this industry,” he said.
Roberto Lim, vice chairman and executive director of the Air Carriers Association of the Philippines (ACAP) said the industry supports the proposed bills pending in Congress — the creation of the National Transportation Safety Board, amendments to the Civil Aviation Authority Act and the Philippine Airports Authority Act.
“The Philippines Airport Authority Act that seeks to transfer all the operation, planning and maintenance to a new agency is a welcome thing from a point of view of ACAP,” Lim said during the virtual forum.
“We welcome that. This agency is expected to be more responsive because it can focus on the airport needs and what that market wants. There should be more focus and collaboration between the airport and the airlines’ prioritization of the airports to be developed,” he added.
David said 1.3 million jobs and $11 billion in revenues dried up during the pandemic so the industry has to restart.
ACAP earlier said local carriers registered an 85 percent decline in the number of passengers carried in 2020 and are bound to lose P65 billion this year.
From 2.28 million passengers carried in December 2019, the number went down to just 10 percent of that volume in December 2020.
From 10,769 in December 2019, the number of flights fell to 2,975 in December 2020.
The Philippines has 85 airports nationwide and had over 60 million air passengers in 2019.
