A RECRUITMENT-industry leader on Friday opposed the plan of Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya and the Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) to include the P550-terminal fee or International Passenger Service Charge (IPSC) in the tickets of departing passengers onboard international airlines.Jackson Gan, a well-known industry voice, said the plan is impractical and will only add more confusion for ticket holders asking for refunds from the Miaa.
Beginning on October 1, the airport terminal fee of P550 per departing passenger would be incorporated into the price of airline tickets, according to Miaa General Manager Jose Angel Honrado.
The decision was arrived at following talks with the representatives of some 30 international air carriers operating out of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).
“The entire process will go through a transition period and is expected to be fully implemented by October 2015, when all tickets purchased or issued prior to October 1, 2014, shall have been used,” Honrado said. However, Gan said there was lack of consultation among the stakeholders in the recruitment industry, that has the largest volume of airline ticket purchases. The airport tax will be refunded to exempted passengers, who are mostly Filipino overseas workers, Gan added, quoting news reports.
“This plan will only backfire if the reason of Secretary Abaya or Manager Honrado is to eliminate the long queues inside the airport premises,” according to Gan, who said the report is inaccurate because the long line of passengers lining up are at the immigration counters and not the terminal fee booths, located just before entering the immigration area.
“Why should the airport refund the airport tax of P550 to the workers who did not pay for the tax but the recruitment agencies or their employers who funded the deployment of the workers?” Gan asked. He added that some airline officials were not present during the reported dialogue called by Honrado with some air carrier representatives at the Naia.
“The Miaa and Department of Transportation and Communication should have consulted first the recruitment industry as there is an estimated 1 million airline tickets paid for each year by the industry,” Gan said, adding that these comprised of 400,000 land-based new hires, 350,000 sea-based new hires and around 250,000 rehires who purchased their tickets in the country.
Most airline tickets are now purchased through electronic transactions or are E-tickets issued by the airlines or travel agencies, that included the airport tax in the cost of the ticket. The Miaa collects an average of P8.36 million daily in international terminal fees.
For 2013, the agency’s gross collections amounted to P3.052 billion in international terminal fees with a net share of P1.932 billion.
More than 7.7 million international departing passengers passed through the country’s premier gateway in 2013 and out of this figure, 2.1 million were exempted from terminal fees.
