No hike in air fare in next 2 months

MANILA, Philippines — No upward adjustments in air fares are likely in the next two months as ticket prices remain free of fuel surcharge.

The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) in its latest advisory said no fuel surcharge would be imposed for domestic and international flights from July 1 to Aug. 31, 2020.

Based on the average price of jet fuel during the two-month evaluating period covering April and May, the CAB said the applicable fuel surcharge for the next two months would remain at Level 0, which means no fuel surcharge will be imposed.

“For April to May 2020, the price of jet fuel averaged $27.3 per barrel, with the dollar exchange rate of 50.65 for the same period. This is equivalent to P8.70 per liter, which corresponds to Level 0 of the passenger fuel surcharge matrix,” CAB said.

“Accordingly, no fuel surcharge shall be imposed for bookings on domestic and international flights originating from the Philippines,” it said.

During the first four months of the year covering the January to February and March to April periods, the applicable fuel surcharge levels have stayed at Level 2, wherein airlines are allowed to impose an increase of P45 to P171 for domestic flights, and P218 to P2,076 for international flights.

It dropped to Level 0 for the current May to June period as jet fuel prices started to decline.

CAB decided to allow the reimposition of fuel surcharge in September 2018 on the back of soaring fuel prices and adopted a matrix for fuel surcharge that will be determined based on the two-month average of jet fuel MOPS (Mean of Platts Singapore) prices in its peso per liter equivalent and will be fixed for two months.

After suspending their local and international flights mid-March due to restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, local airlines resumed with their commercial flights early this month.

So far, only Philippine Airlines has resumed with select international services, with Cebu Pacific and AirAsia Philippines focusing on domestic routes but are also eyeing to restart their flights abroad by next month.