Phl carriers get add'l seats to South Korea

Manila, Philippines -  Three local carriers have received additional seat entitlements to fly to South Korea.

“Philippine Airlines (PAL), Cebu Pacific and Zest Air were given additional entitlements to South Korea,” Civil Aeronautics Board executive director Carmelo Arcilla said in a telephone interview yesterday.

PAL which currently has an existing 7,550-seat allocation received more than 3,000 additional seats.

Cebu Pacific is also getting more than 3,000 seats to add to its current 5,760 allocation.

Zest Air, which has 2,700 seats got an additional 2,000.

“In giving the additional entitlements, we looked at the capability of the carriers. They were given additional seats since they have existing flights there,” Arcilla said.

In April, the Philippines and South Korea agreed to amend their air services pact to increase the weekly seat allocations of flights between the two countries.

From 19,000 seats per week, the two countries agreed to increase weekly entitlements to 28,500.

Arcilla said earlier that given the amended air services pact, the number of visitors from South Korea to the Philippines is expected to hit one million or more this year.

Last year, some 925,000 tourists from South Korea visited the Philippines.

Air talks are being conducted by the country in line with the open skies policy.

Executive Order 29 which was signed by President Aquino in March last year authorized government negotiators to grant access to foreign airlines to the country’s airports other than the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

The policy was intended to support tourism growth and encourage foreign airlines to operate at secondary gateways.