KLM Increases Capacity to the Philippines

[Terpe]

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is increasing by 10 percent the capacity of its Amsterdam-Manila-Amsterdam route after President Aquino signed a law removing a tax that discriminates foreign airlines from local airlines.

In a statement, KLM Royal Dutch said daily flights would continue to operate via Taipei using an aircraft combination of Boeing 777-300s and Boeing 777-200s.

“With aforementioned capacity increase, KLM aspires to take a first step towards the joint goal with the Department of Tourism of bringing more tourists to the Philippines,” the airline said.

The Aquino administration is looking at 10 million tourists visiting the Philippines by 2016 from last year’s level of about 4.3 million.

The airline cited Republic Act 10374 otherwise known as the Common Carriers Tax Act that rationalized the taxes paid by international carriers.

The law signed last month by President Aquino removed the three percent common carriers imposed on passenger traffic of foreign airlines.

John Paul Cabalza, president of Philippine Travel Agencies Association (PTAA), earlier said leading international carriers including Cathay Pacific, Delta Airlines, Etihad, KLM, Kuwait Airlines, Lufthansa/Swiss Airlines, Qatar Airlines, and Singapore Airlines are expected to add more flights into the country by middle of this year

The law also exempted international air and shipping carriers from paying Gross Philippine Billings provided that the carrier’s home country “grants income tax exemption to Philippine carriers” on the basis of reciprocity or an applicable tax treaty or international agreement.

The law also exempted international carriers from paying the 12-percent value added tax (VAT) for the transport of passengers.

Both CCT and GPBT carries a 5.50-percent tax on airlines that translates to P2.50 billion in revenues for the government.

Source:-
http://goodnewspilipinas.com/2013/04...e-philippines/

[KeithD]

Yaaaaay ... they won in the end and got the concessions .... this is good news for a lot of people.

[joebloggs]

[stevewool]

never flown with KLM,
I wonder if the prices will come down

[Dedworth]

Yaaaaay ... they won in the end and got the concessions .... this is good news for a lot of people.

Not going back to non stop from Amsterdam though dropping that was a direct result of PI Govt Policies

[Arthur Little]

never flown with KLM,
I wonder if the prices will come down

... who knows, Steve. You and Em could always try "going Dutch", though!

[keith britten]

Still no direct flights from Europe which would be more useful. Stevewool, you haven't missed out on any thing,KLM are not that good to their customers unless your a "Flying Blue" gold member. They get all the attention in flight while the other passengers get ignored.

[andy222]

We hear good and bad about all airlines. I tend to go for the cheapest. KLM are ok.

[RickyR]

Still no direct flights from Europe which would be more useful. Stevewool, you haven't missed out on any thing,KLM are not that good to their customers unless your a "Flying Blue" gold member. They get all the attention in flight while the other passengers get ignored.

As a former FB Gold (now back to Silver sadly), I found them excellent in economy when using the benefits such as lounge access, priority boarding, choice of seats etc. Out of Humberside airport, I've flown to destinations all over the world with them. My loyalty has even extended to a flight where I flew Humberside-Amsterdam-London to connect to a London-Muscat flight with Omanair (really it was for the miles, courtesy of work).
Reasons I like KLM from the UK is that Schiphol is like a second home, its very easy to transfer through particularly with security at the gate rather then central security (from UK to International that is), although that will be changing in the near future, its a convenient place, very spacious. They have an excellent system in place for dealing with missed connections (just go straight to a machine and it will print out your new boarding pass and food/hotel vouchers, rebooking you onto the next available flight), and generally run to a fairly good schedule. The service onboard is consistent, nothing amazing, just ok. They service the UK regions better then any other airline. And the flights to Asia are shorter then via the Middle East because of the 'Great Circle' routing.
I also have a lot of Delft houses from sitting up front, but generally choose to fly other airlines when I have the luxury of bigger seats.

[KeithD]

I found KLM staff useless. On the flight I was on they totally ignored the needs of the disabled during boarding making them queue up and fight to get on the plane with everyone else. I've never seen them treated like that on any airline.... and the sandwiches were puke

[Trefor]

Does more capacity mean more seats crammed into the same planes? The article is not clear to me. Also I hate 'via' flights. Reminds me of BA to Muscat 'via Abu Dhabi' - basically you sit on the tarmac for over an hour getting annoyed.

My previous extensive experience (as opposed to the odd LHR/AMS) with KLM was 20 years ago when I was living in Amsterdam. In my early career I flew KLM to San Francisco quite a lot. I recall you could smoke on flights back then, only at the back of the plane. I can't really remember it being that smokey but these days I'm sure I'd notice from the front (not that I get to sit at the front!). I found KLM's service mediocre back then, and the planes were pretty tired. I noticed recently that they are still running old planes(DC10/MD80?) on the AMS/SFO route - crikey, they must creak a bit. They should have sold them to umbo bongo airlines years ago. I have one Delft house so I think I must have got a free upgrade to business at some point, can't remember it though so it wasn't much good!

Note that KLM is owned by Air France, I see Air France gets all the shiney new planes ...

We're in the process of moving to the Midlands and I'll be using Birmingham airport a lot (at least once a week). I'm planning to use KLM a lot for the connection reasons RickyR mentions. However, for a flight to Manila I'm not sure they're going to be fun in Economy.

[KeithD]

On my last flight from Amsterdam to Liverpool with KLM we got just near the English coast and had to suddenly descend and turn back ... it was nice of the pilots to wait for 5 minutes before informing the passengers that the windscreen had cracked and we had to go back to Amsterdam which at that point was further than Liverpool

[Trefor]

These things do happen. I'm sure the pilots were a bit busy trying to get their masks on and talking to control before they had time to chat with their passengers

I was on a flight once where the pilot's escape hatch (kind of a cockpit sunroof) blew out. That wasn't fun. Especially when the required quick landing was aborted due to another plane on the runway.

Mind you, I'm sure RickyR has some tales...