Empty Seats
2 August 2013
2 August 2013
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| The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) has said enough of Zest Airways excuses of cancelling flights as it placed the airline under "heightened" surveillance by safety inspectors following its repeated cancellation of flights due to alleged mechanical problems. Sources in the industry however discloses that the airline is not generating enough passengers for some of the scheduled flights for which reason they have been cancelled during the past weeks causing inconvenience to its booked passengers. In July, the carrier cancelled a total of 33 flights mostly going to Kalibo. Today Zest Air cancelled flight 326 bound for Tacloban.Yesterday the airline cancelled 8 flights all due to aircraft situation problem. CAAP Deputy Director General John Andrews said that airlines has a habit of cancelling flights with low booking, and just reason out aircraft situation as the problem. Andrew said they will inspect not only Zest Air aircraft but also other operators who cancels flight due to flight situation problems and find out whether actual maintenance and repair is done and made on the aircraft as has been reasoned out. |
Did Japan Airlines, Jetstar Asia, Jetstar Airways, and KLM stop their service in Manila?
ReplyDeleteNo they didn't, only Hawaiian Airlines stopped its flights to Manila. The final flight departed last Thursday.
DeleteKLM Stopped its flight to Manila since of the restriction.
DeleteWhy don't Hawaiian Airlines continue their service to Manila via codesharing to Philippine Airlines?
DeleteKLM is still flying to Manila, via Taipei.
DeleteWell, since its only PAL that takes care of Honolulu to Manila then that means better profit for PAL. Codeshare cant be made since Hawaiian Airline is a US company and no further announcements made yet that PAL is out of category 2 from the US. There cant be any no codeshare to any US aircraft since of the Category 2.
DeleteZestair has a habit of cancelling their flight. When your in t4 looking at the departure bord either their flight is cancelled or delayed.....
ReplyDeleteI never flew this airline so I can't comment further..
ReplyDelete+1 for CAAP getting on the ball to see what is going on. Airlines better be on their toes to keep things running right!
ReplyDeleteFlights to and from the Tagbilaran airport in Bohol were suspended Tuesday, 13 August, after an Airbus A320 belonging to Zest Air encountered some problems on the ramp… and ended up obstructing the adjacent runway.
ReplyDeleteIt remains unclear what afflicted the Zest Air plane, but what was clear was that hundreds of passengers were inconvenienced since authorities had to suspend all flights to the city that serves as the gateway to the tourist magnet that is Bohol. In fact, several inbound flights that were already in the air were diverted to nearby Cebu.
As of Tuesday afternoon, a “go team” from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines and a Zest Air maintenance crew were preparing to fly to Bohol on a chartered Beechcraft King Air (which can land using less runway length) to assess the situation and whether the runway could be cleared for regular operations.
Given the string of problems experienced by budget carriers lately—including Zest Air, which was placed by regulators under “heightened monitoring”—it looks like CAAP was right to put the local airline industry under the 40-minute aircraft turnaround rule. Hopefully, longer ground time will prevent airlines from cutting corners that may compromise safety.
Daxim L. Lucas