House panels urged to tackle Cebu Pacific franchise suspension

MANILA, Philippines — A lawmaker has revived calls for the House of Representatives to tackle a resolution seeking the suspension of the legislative franchise of airline Cebu Pacific after a “barrage” of complaints continued to be sent to his office.

Cebu Pacific was the subject of a Senate probe in June wherein senators demanded answers from the country’s largest budget carrier on passengers’ overbooking and offloading issues.

The airline has since introduced changes to its customer policies in which it removed the expiration for travel funds and extended the validity of travel vouchers.

While these adjustments were welcomed by Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (Cagayan de Oro, 2nd District), he also called these “cosmetic changes” and said that a House probe is still necessary to determine issues with the airline company’s passenger services.

RELATED: CebuPac says rebooking glitch is website design issue, vows changes by late July 

“I filed Resolution No. 1101 last June 26 in view of such complaints. It has been more than two months and no public hearing has been held. So I am appealing to the committee on legislative franchises and the committee on transportation to already set the resolution for hearing,” the lawmaker said.

Rodriguez said he continues to receive “a barrage of calls and text messages reporting on the continued very bad passenger services of Cebu Pacific.”

According to the lawmaker, complaints mostly come from other lawmakers, public officials and his Cagayan de Oro City constituents.

“Except for some cosmetic changes, Cebu Pacific’s service has not really improved. Its franchise to operate should be suspended until they shape up to the satisfaction of the riding public,” he stressed.

The lawmaker said that Cebu Pacific must inform the public about the frequency of its flight cancellations and if it has fixed its overbooking issues.

Rodriguez said that the low-cost carrier should also inform the public if there are additional phone lines and customer service personnel for passenger complaints — a point of criticism against Cebu Pacific in the Senate hearing.  

Passengers in June voiced their grievances about apparent website glitches that led them to be charged multiple times for transactions that appeared to be unsuccessful, among other issues with the airline service. 

RELATED: Travelers take to the internet their complaints during Cebu Pacific Super Pass glitches  

— Cristina Chi