Philippines suspends Zest Air on safety grounds
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Philippine low-cost carrier Zest Air has been suspended by the country’s aviation authorities over safety concerns.
Hundreds of passengers were reported to have been left stranded on Saturday, unaware of the airline’s predicament. The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) said on Friday that the Manila-based LCC had violated several safety regulations, including refuelling with a passenger onboard, failure to check aircraft logs, and a “series of occurrences that affected several flight operations”.
Zest Air has it was surprised by the decision, as it has been in “full cooperation with [the] CAAP”.
“In response to the order of suspension from CAAP, we are surprised that this was issued without giving us an opportunity to properly respond to their issues raised,” the airline said in a statement. “All [CAAP] findings… have already been appropriately addressed and we believe that they do not merit suspension and grounding of our operations,” it added.
Zest Air currently operates a fleet of 16 aircraft – 11 Airbus A320s, one A319 and four Chinese-made Xian MA-60s, which came under scrutiny earlier this year for their poor safety record. Indeed, in 2009 Zest suffered two MA-60 accidents, both at Caticlan airport – the gateway to the resort island of Boracay.
Zest is also a partner of AirAsia, which took an equity stake in the airline in March this year, in a strategic move to boost its presence at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport. In fact one of the A320s operated by Zest Air features the AirAsia livery. The operations of AirAsia Philippines however, remain unaffected by the Zest Air suspension.
Despite its opposition to the suspension, Zest said it would now implement a “comprehensive improvement programme… to further raise the standards of excellence across all aspects of personnel, parts and maintenance/technical services”.
In the meantime, other airlines including Philippines Airlines and PAL Express, have pledged to operate more flights to cater for Zest Air’s customers.
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