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MANILA - Cebu Pacific has lost its bid to snatch Philippine Airlines' flight entitlements to the Middle East.
“We denied the request because these entitlements were awarded to PAL,” said Carmelo Arcilla, Civil Aeronautics Board executive said.
Cebu Pacific earlier petitioned CAB to recall seven of PAL's 14 flight entitlements to United Arab Emirates as well as some entitlements to Saudi Arabia, arguing that the flag carrier had stopped its direct flights to those areas.
Maria Elben Moro, CAB legal head, said the board decided otherwise because PAL was still using its entitlements through a code-sharing arrangement with other carriers.
“It’s not as if PAL is not actually using the entitlements. They are, albeit via a code share arrangement which involves a contract between two private entities,” she said.
PAL flies to Dubai and Abu Dhabi 14 times a week, to Bahrain eight times a week, and to Doha seven times a week. The airline however halted direct flights to UAE in 1998, and its Riyadh flights in March last year.
Cebu Pacific earlier said it plans to mount long-haul flights, initially to the Middle East, by the third quarter of next year.
The Gokongwei-owned low-cost carrier wants to tap destinations with heavy concentrations of overseas Filipinos. Besides the Middle East, Cebu Pacific is eyeing Australia, parts of Europe and the US.
The airline had asked CAB to allow flights to Oman from Manila and Clark.
Cebu Pacific will lease up to eight Airbus A330-300 aircraft to serve these new markets.
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