Christmas absent
Howls of rage over Christmas. That's what Cebu Pacific elicited when it made sure that Yuletide passengers didn't catch their flights home.
There the passengers were, dreaming of a family reunion, lugging gifts gaily wrapped up for their kids or their favorite godchildren. Some would have specialty cakes carefully hand-carried, or even boxes of that traditional pasalubong from Manila (god knows why when there are franchises in every city), Dunkin Donuts. Maybe some flew in fresh from their OFW jobs, with only a few days break before they have to report back to their lifeline employers.
And what do they get when they try to check in at the airport? Chaos. Cancelled flights. Excuses from hapless employees that didn't quite satisfy the irate passengers. End result, countless passengers stranded in the airport, their Christmas dreams dashed.
Social media outrage over the airlines is a common sight. Friends always complain about delayed flights, the waste of hours of their precious time, and missing connections. To tell you the truth, I've gotten blasé over this fact of life already, having had to travel, at one point, almost every other week.
My thought then was, there's hardly anyone can do, right, considering the airport congestion that's caused many flights to circle above Manila waiting to land, or planes to idle at the tarmac waiting for their turn to be given clearance to take-off. Until the government bids out that additional runway (or, as recent news reports have it, that extra terminal), this is something we Filipinos have to bear for the short term interval.
But, this doesn't seem to be the case here. A probe revealed that Cebu Pacific was woefully unprepared for the flights it itself had scheduled. The airport manager has disclosed that from 4:00 to 6:00 a.m. on December 24, when there was no congestion, Cebu Pacific already had several flights delayed. While congestion could be a cause for late afternoon or evening flights to lag from the schedule, those in the morning aren't necessarily affected, right? Unless there was some other reason.
Well, it turns out there was "chronic absenteeism" from employees who didn't show up for pre-Christmas work, and only two counters being manned for dozens of flights. As a result, passengers lined up for more than three hours, and yet still failed to board their planes.
What's irritating about this fiasco is that Cebu Pacific has the temerity to offer congestion as an excuse, when other culprits seem to be responsible. And, those culprits can be taken to be indicia of its negligence.
Couldn't it have anticipated the volume of passengers with extra personnel? Perhaps some form of Christmas hazard pay could have been offered to employees, so that there would be enough incentive to show up for work. Of course, the airline does have to take into account the overbooking it seems to have practiced, as intimated by news reports.
Not acceptable. We the public shouldn't be taking this. We should be demanding for recompense from this airline, and getting satisfaction for the constant hassle and inconvenience that are foisted upon us.
The airline industry affects public interest. That is why it is necessary for a franchise to be granted to airline operators. That franchise imposes conditions on the operator, to make sure that it doesn't abuse the public that depends on it. And if the operator violates its franchise, we should exact the penalties that are imposable.
What Cebu Pacific did was almost criminal. In fact, some lawyers, such as advocate Wilfredo Garrido, who has spearheaded litigation against big corporate interests, even propose that the crime of syndicated estafa be sicced upon the airline. (This is an interesting theory that could put airline operators on their toes.
Really. If government can't protect us, then concerned citizens with the means and the brains should go after abusive airline practices. Whether it be inefficient services, deceptive web tactics designed to extract more fees, arbitrary cancellations, or punitive rebooking fees, those all have to go. Hopefully, the aptly termed Cebucalypse achieves critical mass, and something good comes out of this. That would be a wonderful Christmas present.
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