PH Amends ASA with Macau

June 9, 2013

The Philippines and Macau agreed to raise seat entitlements between Manila and Macau from 3,500 to 4,500 seats per week, CAB said last week.

The agreement was in response to the request of budget carriers Zest Air and Southeast Asian Airlines for more entitlements between the two destinations.

Cebu Pacific (CEB) currently has 1253 seats per week and Philippine Airlines (PAL) has 1092 seat entitlements per week to its flights to Macau. Zest Air has been applying for a new direct flight to Macau from Manila since last year but was haunted by scheduling problems.

“The memorandum of understanding (MOU) was amended to increase the previous allowed number of seats per week,” Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) Executive Director Carmelo L. Arcilla said.

Arcilla also said the new memorandum allowed unlimited seats between Macau and all international airports in the country, except Manila.

“In the old memorandum of understanding inked in 2007, seats between Macau and points outside Manila were limited to about 1,000.” Arcilla said.

Both countries have agreed to remove the seating limit in line with the move to increase passenger traffic to destinations outside Metro Manila under the so-called open skies policy.

“In compliance with the requirement of EO (Executive Order) 29 on open skies, the parties agreed to unlimited seats to airports outside Manila,” he said.

Seat allocation between Macau and gateways outside Metro Manila were previously limited to 10,000 under the original MOU inked in 2007.