Cebu Pacific, PAL apologize for 'disruptions'

Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines apologized on Wednesday for the "disruptions" and "inconveniences" to the public, citing engine and supply chain issues as the main problems that affect their operations.

Facing a Senate hearing, Cebu Pacific chief commercial officer Alexander Lao explained the current challenges in the global aviation industry.

“We express our sincerest apologies to our passengers for the disruptions and assure you that we are committed to resolving these challenges. We value the trust and confidence of our passengers and are committed to providing safe, affordable, and reliable flights,” Lao told the Senate panel.

"Naiintindihan namin na responsibilidad pa rin namin ito bilang serbisyo publiko," he added.

According to Lao, the industry began to feel challenges as early as March due to engine issues of some of its planes, particularly the Airbus A321/A320 NEO aircraft.

“The PW (Pratt and Whitney) engines are experiencing premature removal from service and each engine restoration requires 220 days instead of the industry norm of 90 days," Lao explained.

"This premature servicing can be likened to a car's preventive maintenance, where the vehicle is brought in for inspection at 3,000 kilometers instead of the expected 5,000 kilometers. Additionally, the vehicle is in the shop for one month instead of one day,” said Lao.

Apart from this, the Cebu Pacific official also mentioned delays in aircraft deliveries, which were worsened by global supply chain issues.

“These delivery delays necessitate changes to our flight schedules, including flight cancellations and equipment changes from larger to smaller aircraft which may cause some passengers to be disrupted and cause the perception of overbooking,” Lao said.

“Rather than canceling the flight, the use of smaller aircraft allows us to still bring as many customers as possible to their destination and lessen the number of disrupted passengers,” he added.

Cebu Pacific also cited the following incidents that damaged their aircraft and resulted in logistical difficulties in recovering the fleets:

• Ground damage from runway debris
• Damage caused by unexpected severe weather events,
• Bird-strikes
• Aircraft damaged by a burst tire upon landing and
• Damage from a towing incident by our contracted maintenance provider

Lastly, the budget carrier said that red lightning alerts have become more prevalent and are longer in duration this year, which affect flights and eventually lead to cancellations.

“These are the realities that frame Cebu Pacific’s current operations, and we are taking all possible steps to address the issues that are global in impact, such as reducing flight schedules, acquiring additional aircraft for greater resilience and enhancing our customer care and recovery policy,” Lao said.

Disruption Management Team

To enhance their operations and assist the affected passengers, Lao said they are activating a disruption management team, increasing live chat agents, and improving policies and processes for disruption handling and communication.

PAL also shared the same experiences at the Senate hearing and extended their apologies over the “inconvenience” that they have caused the public.

“We do confirm that, like Cebu Pacific, our operations have been affected by the global supply chain shortage that is currently ongoing. We do acknowledge that in the past several weeks,  it has been most challenging for PAL, considering that we have been experiencing an increased number of our aircraft that are on preventive maintenance- most of these are unscheduled,” PAL Vice President for Legal Affairs Ma. Clara de Castro.

De Castro lamented that these operational challenges came when travel was at its peak, particularly during the summer season and the long weekends. 

“We’re not offering any excuses. We are fully aware of the inconvenience to our passengers. Kaya po humihingi kami ng sinserong paumanhin sa publiko, sa aming mga pasahero,” she said.

“We give you, our dear senators, our passengers, and the public our assurances that we continue to work in order to bring our operations to normalcy and to extend to our passengers what is expected of PAL,” she added.

Like Cebu Pacific, De Castro said they have three aircraft on extended maintenance, five are awaiting maintenance work, and five have been parked indefinitely.

To cope with the situation, De Castro said the flag carrier has implemented a “proactive reduction” of flight schedules.

“We ensure that flight schedules are at the minimum. We cancel what we think can be cancelled given the situation at least seven days prior or even more. So that gives us the time to give advance notice and advisories to our passengers,” she said.

"By [doing] so, we are able to somehow manage better, perhaps our on-the-day cancellations. We are not saying we do not have on-the-day cancellations. We do admit that we still have on-the-day cancellations, but at least we try to keep it on the minimum," she explained.

In cases of on-the-day cancellations, PAL said their first option is to offer replacement flights, but this is a remedy that is not always available.

“What we do is we have enhanced our assistance to our passengers by allowing rebooking for no charge, refund if they wish to do that to convert their fare to travel fund,” PAL Vice President for Corporate Communication Jose Perez de Tagle said. —VAL, GMA Integrated News