President Aquino has bowed to pressure and finally removed the iniquitous Common Carrier Tax which only applied to foreign airlines operating to and from this country. For some, the President's decision came too late: Hawaiian Airlines recently announced that it is to cease its Honolulu-Manila service as of August 1. CCT's removal is unlikely to encourage KLM to revert to its direct Manila-Amsterdam service as Taipei, through which its Manila flights are routed, now serves as KLM Asia's maintenance hub. The EU has responded to the latest ICAO report by lifting its airspace restrictions even though the FAA still lists the country as "Category 2". PAL has announced that it is to commence services between Manila and Moscow and Manila and Budapest later this year. As neither country has OFWs, the move is a likely response to the Philippine Government's demands for increased foreign tourism. Russians, who seem to have more disposable income than many, do like to spend their vacations in hot third world countries, and are very much in evidence at Thai resorts. The Philippines naturally wants some of that action. But Hungary? Not at all the announcement I would have expected. But if you've been following events in the UK aviation world, it might occur to you that your pilgrimage to paradise may in future be a bit cheaper. That is, of course, if you're prepared to "slum-it" between London and Moscow. The CAA turned-down Virgin Atlantic's bid to commence services between Heathrow and Domodedovo, Moscow's main international airport and gave the additional routes to easyJet and British Airways. The BA flights will be from Heathrow whilst easyJet's from Gatwick.
