Airlines mandated to submit monthly performance report

MANILA, Philippines — The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) is requiring all local carriers to submit a monthly on-time performance (OTP) report as part of the government’s efforts to improve passenger service and address flight delays.

The CAB in its latest advisory mandated all domestic and international scheduled Philippine carriers to submit an OTP report which must contain the average of all daily flights per airport of origin on a monthly basis.

It said the OTPs should be determined by recording the time of chocks-off, in case of a departure, and chocks-on, for arrival.

“If the actual departure or arrival time is up to 15 minutes past the original schedule, the flight is considered on time,” the CAB said.

Possible penalties are still being studied by the government for airlines that would record low OTP averages.

The OTP is a measure of operational efficiency, as it indicates the percentage of flights per airline that have departed and arrived on their specific schedules.

Cebu Pacific was earlier investigated by the CAB after cancelling a total of 172 one-way domestic flights from April 28 to May 10, which is equivalent to about 14 flights a day, out of its more or less 400 daily domestic flights.

The budget carrier reported during the hearings that it takes at least 49 minutes and as long as 66 minutes from the aircraft’s closing of doors to actual lift-off.

Of the said period, about 19.6 minutes is spent from the closing of doors to the “blocks off” or the time the aircraft vacates the parking position, while 46.6 minutes from the blocks off to the lift-off.

The hour-long stay on the tarmac was observed to have pushed Cebu Pacific’s OTP to an average of 51.16 percent, with lows of around 30 percent in March.

Last month, the government and airlines reached an agreement regarding the need to impose penalties and sanctions for unreasonable flight delays or delays caused by the airlines.