Local airlines face another round of disruptions amid new COVID-19 surge

MANILA, Philippines — Just as the local airline industry is still finding its footing after the coronavirus pandemic sapped travel demand, a fast-rising surge in the Philippines is already leading to back-to-back flight cancelations that are ruining many people’s travel plans and threatening to disrupt the aviation sector's recovery.

The Philippines is currently battling another deluge of infections as caseloads spiked a daily high of 17,220 new cases on Thursday, the highest in three months. But the country is not alone in dealing with this surge, as the highly-contagious but less-severe Omicron variant sweeps the world.

Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and AirAsia Philippines announced this week that dozens of their Hong Kong flights have been cancelled after the city sealed its borders to travelers from the Philippines and seven other countries that are seeing new wave of infections.

But travel bans are not the only problem of airlines now. Cebu Pacific on Thursday decided to cancel several local flights due to manpower shortage as employees get sick.

The Gokongwei-led carrier has cancelled 24 domestic flights from January 7 to 10, including those going in and out of Cebu, Puerto Princesa, Boracay, Tacloban, and Cagayan De Oro. The company said it is "reviewing its network schedule and closely monitoring manpower levels with employees currently on quarantine."

"We cannot provide exact number of employees in quarantine given patient privacy and confidentiality. However, we assure you that CEB has been agile in assisting its workforce while it exhausts all efforts to ensure employees' welfare are prioritized," the airline said in a statement.

Cebu Pacific said 100% of their active flight crew is fully vaccinated, undergoing regular antigen tests before getting assigned to operate flights. The airline announced it started its vaccine booster program.

While the company did not disclose whether there are workers who have been isolated, a representative from AirAsia Philippines, meanwhile, said it is not yet experiencing any staffing woes that may disrupt its operations.

"We will also maintain our current flight frequencies and will adhere to the local government unit protocols and implement changes as necessary," AirAsia said in a statement.

"The difference between then and now is that we already have established COVID-19 measures and our past experiences in dealing with changes in COVID-19 protocols have allowed us to act quickly and communicate effectively to our guests the much-needed travel information," it added.

Philstar.com reached out to Philippine Airlines but the company declined to answer questions about the situation of its employees. The distressed airline recently emerged from a creditor-backed bankruptcy process.