Cebu Pacific Suggests Government To Regulate Tax Paid By Passengers
CEBU PACIFIC – Airline company Cebu Pacific, also one of the budget carriers, urges the government to remove some taxes that were paid by air passengers.
Alexander Lao, the airlines’ vice-president for commercial planning, said
that the cost of travelling to the passenger is essential, considering that 60 % of air passengers in the Philippines are using low cost carriers (LCCs).
Lao further implied that Philippines is one of the two countries in Southeast Asia who charged Filipinos for a travel tax. He added that LCCs can stimulate a demand due to the reason that the overall ticket price should be much lower than it was in the past. Thus, taxes must be removed and regulated as some of these passenger service charges are important.
According to PhilStar, passengers leaving the Philippines were charged a full travel tax of ₱1,620 for economy class, and ₱2,700 for first class.
overseas Filipino workers (OFWs )and Filipino permanent residents(PRs) abroad are exempted to pay the tax.
Meanwhile, in NAIA, passengers are charged a terminal fee of ₱550 for international and ₱200 for domestic flights and are expected to increase to ₱750 and ₱300 respectively starting April.
As per the report, Lao acknowledged that some taxes are traditional in nature, while some were given to airport operators in order for them to continue to build and improve the airports. Lao, however, suggested the operators to also explore more non-aeronautical revenue streams such as development of real estate, sales through retail, and operation of duty-free outlets.
Lastly, Lao said that sometimes, what is being looked at for revenues is mainly the airlines as they, themselves, try to stimulate the demand so it’s very important that they’re able to pass on all of these cost savings to our customers.
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