Philippines: Airline regulator drawing up penalties for ‘chronic delays’

The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) is crafting a penalty scheme to punish airlines for “chronic delays.” CAB executive director Carmelo Arcilla said that the regulator plans to release in 2 months a memorandum circular that will impose sanctions on carriers’ “chronic” flight delays. “We are coming up with a regulation to... penalise chronic delays. What we are looking at is drawing the line between normal delays — these are unavoidable at a certain level — and chronic delays,” Arcilla said, describing occasional delays as a “reality”. CAB says there is “chronic delay” when more than half of a carrier’s flights in a month are delayed. Last month, the CAB started requiring local airlines to submit a monthly report of their on-time performance to help the regulator evaluate operational efficiency at the country’s gateways. <br/>