By GENIVI FACTAO

Philippine Airlines (PAL) yesterday offered help to the government to fast track compliance to international safety standards after the US Federal Aviation Authority downgraded the country to category 2.

This downgrade will adversely affect PAL’s planned expansion.

PAL president Jaime Bautista assured clients that despite certain restrictions brought about the rating, the airline would continue to fly to United States.

Bautista said the government should correct the deficiencies within 6 months, claiming the airline is willing to help in order to bring back the category 1 rating to the country.

A country is given a Category 1 rating if the country’s civil aviation authorities (CAA) has been found to license and oversee air carriers in accordance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation safety standards.

Category 2 means a country’s CAA does not provide safety oversight of its air carriers in accordance with the minimum safety oversight standards of ICAO.

All local airlines will be affected by the category 2 rating, like PAL, which has to maintain a status quo of its current service to the US.

The country has only complied with one out of the 7 focused areas, which is the primary civil aviation law. The government failed in civil regulation; qualified technical personnel; technical guidance; certification and licensing; continuous oversight and resolution of safety issues which are requirements set by ICAO.

"We hope the Air Transportation Office (ATO) will soon be able to rectify the assessed deficiencies in its air safety oversight functions so the country can revert to Category 1," Bautista said adding that being the only Philippine carrier, which flies to US, they are responsible of maintaining their operations despite the rating.

He further said they can extend funding, technical expertise and equipments like computers to ATO when needed.

Bautista said they are supposed to increase flights to US but the said rating would not allow them to increase its 33 flights a week to the US and its territories or from changing the type or increasing the number of aircraft used on these routes.

PAL currently flies to Los Angeles 11 times a week, San Francisco, 9; Las Vegas via Vancouver, 5; Honolulu, 3 and Guam 5. Its US operations account for 30 percent of its total revenues.

"Also to be affected is the delivery starting next year to 2011 of six brand new Boeing 777-300 ER airplanes to be deployed by PAL on the trans-Pacific flights," it said.

Bautista also expressed concern on the negative effect of Category 2 to PAL’s plans to open service to San Diego, Chicago, New York and Saipan.

The company also noted its effect in inbound and outbound tourism traffic, especially the "balikbayan" which is its niche market.

The company president said they have not decided where to deploy the new aircraft which will be coming starting 2009 and is hopeful that the government will immediately act on the matter before the aircraft comes.

He further said that they would have to recompute their projections for the coming years if their plans would not materialize.

Bautista assured of its commitment to the public to improve the services and refurbish 4 Boeing 747-400 in October, which would need $50 million. Also they will smarten up its 4 A340 next year, which entails a $40 million budget. Instead of more flights, they plan to increase the seat capacity of their aircrafts, improve lights, in flight entertainment system and others for the benefit of their clients.