Love is in the air

MANILA, Philippines - In this story, a self-made, sought-after New York-educated dentist falls in love with a charming lady Ivatan from Batanes, is captivated with the enchanting island and decides to build an airline company to make it easier to reach that secluded northernmost tip of the Philippine archipelago.

They meet, they marry and then they fly high.

This is the story of Dr. Joel Mendoza, president and chief executive officer of Skyjet, the country’s newest airline, and his Ivatan wife, Ma. Rosan Castillejos-Mendoza.

It was love at first sight, Mendoza tells STARweek in a recent interview. He fell in love and such enchantment extended to Batanes, where the object of his love was from.

Thus, Skyjet was born, straight out of his dental clinic in Makati, where he put up a travel agency first and started taking calls for chartered flights.

His secretary would take calls for dental appointments as well as requests for chartered flights.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Mendoza met his wife in 2005. He was single and dating mostly yuppies from Makati. “My love life then was a total disaster,” he says.

When he met Rosan through a common friend, Mendoza was blown away. He fell in love with her simplicity and gentle demeanor, traits that Ivatans have been known for.

“She’s very simple, very natural. She had no pretensions. She was very different from all the girls I dated,” he says.

And when he stepped on the islands of Batanes to meet Rosan’s family, he was captivated by the beauty and simplicity of the place. He fell in love with the stunning seascapes and landscapes of Batanes, its altruistic soul and its gentle people.

“It was real beauty. Amongst the people, there was no discrimination. I fell in love with the culture and the people of Batanes,” he says.

He wanted to do something to help promote its culture and to provide livelihood for its people.

Thus, he put up the Batanes Cultural Travel Agency (BCTA), which he markets as “Your Personalized Batanes Tour Operator.”

“I started developing a cultural package,” he says.

The aim is to promote the cultural heritage of Batanes, a unique group of three islands where time seems to have stopped. It is, in the words of Doc Joel, a place where traditions are well preserved.

BCTA offers personalized travel packages for cultural tourists, nature and eco tourists and adventure tourists, Mendoza explains. He tapped the native Ivatans as guides for they know their island best, he says.

“Batanes is for cultural tourists. Tourists who appreciate authentic material of non-material local cultural, look for traces of interchange of human values over time, interested in artifacts and other testaments of local history, like to mingle with local folks and appreciate native expressions of universal human values. Nature/eco tourist and adventure tourists get highs from natural landscapes and seascapes, understand and appreciate basic ecology, support biodiversity conservation, like the outdoors, are into physically challenging activities and like to test their stamina and strength,” BCTA says in its profile.

The agency became so successful that Mendoza had to arrange and charter more flights to meet demand.

He had a lot of referrals, including his patients and their friends. This was going on so well until destiny intervened. Southeast Asian Airlines or Seair suspended its flights to Batanes in 2012. It was then that Doc Joel decided to push through with commercial flights and not just chartered flights.

In 2012, Mendoza’s Magnum Air, the company behind Skyjet Airlines, obtained its license to mount commercial flights. Skyjet utilizes British Aerospace manufactured 4-engine BAE-146 series 200, which is a 94-seater plane, and the series 100, which is a 76-seater jet aircraft called a whispering jet. The British royal family uses the same plane, a solid testament to its safety.

The plane can land on short runways and can connect passengers from Manila to other islands in the Philippines where short and unimproved runways are a common challenge.

The airline launched its first schedule service to Basco, Batanes on Dec. 14, 2012, a month after the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines granted the carrier its airline operator certificate. The airline achieved success in supporting the Batanes local community by providing alternative income through cultural tourism.

Now, Skyjet Airlines also flies to Busuanga in Palawan, to Caticlan in Boracay and soon to Surigao del Sur, Virac and Catarman.

“We wanted people to rediscover other destinations, not just Batanes,” he says. Mendoza, however, stresses that Skyjet is not out to compete with the giants or other airlines.

“We’re not here to compete. We’re here to allow people to rediscover destinations. We’re here to help the country,” he says.

Skyjet’s flight path may deviate from the ordinary path, but that’s not surprising, for after all, one fine day, when Joel Mendoza least expected it, love came into his life, and took it soaring to the skies.