Travel getting more expensive

VIRTUAL BUSINESS By Tony Lopez  Manila Times

TRAVEL is getting more expensive and difficult. To start with, visas to the United States and Canada used to be free. Now, you pay P3,375 for single entry visa to Canada. If you want to go twice during the year, you pay double. A British multiple entry visa valid for one year costs P6,300. It used to be that you could walk into the Canadian consulate in New York and get your tourist visa in 10 minutes or less. Not anymore. Now, you have to attach all sorts of documents to your application proving in effect that you are rich enough to travel and that you have a compelling reason to return to the Philippines. Processing takes four to eight weeks. Though Filipinos have only one country, majority of them still prefer to get a job and live in the United States or Canada. The single most important ambition of every young Filipino is go abroad, preferably to the US, and live there. This attitude is reinforced by the fact that the Philippines has been the slowing growing economy in Asia in the last 27 years, bar none. Countries that didn’t even exist before the mid-1960s or were considered the poorest of Third-World nations are now more prosperous than the Philippines. Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong used to be envious of the Philippines’ prosperity until the late 1960s. Philippine exports were 10 times these countries’ export income. Now, it has been reversed. Our dollar earnings are not even a 10th of their exports. Amenities that other people take for granted—like water, electricity, good roads, and of course, good government—are not available to many Filipinos. No wonder, Filipinos want to enjoy those amenities—abroad. An economy ticket from Manila to the US to Toronto and back costs $1,493. Of that, the tax is $193. And then there are endless fuel and security charges, which vary in amounts depending on the distance traveled. In North America, airlines are learning to earn money the British Airways way, that is, charge excess baggage fees. What used to be free is now subject to surcharge. Air Canada is reducing its free baggage allowance from 70 pounds to 50 pounds, or 32 kilos. You are allowed two pieces of luggage each weighing 50 pounds. Anything in excess you pay $35 a kilo for flights within North America and $60 for flights going to Asia. The move puts Air Canada’s baggage charges in line with those of its competitors like Northwest and Continental Airlines. The international average free baggage allowance is 23 kilos, or 44 pounds, ala British Airways. So there will be situations where the excess baggage charges are more than the cost of a return ticket. That’s how ridiculous those excess baggage fees are. They are simply extortionate. At the rate charges are rising, there will come a time when you pay a kilo of your currency to pay for a kilo of excess baggage. Air Canada blames climbing fuel prices for exploring other ways of making money. The airline had raised its ticket prices this August pointing out that its fuel costs jumped 42 percent in one year. Another hidden inflation is by reducing the quality of in-flight service. For a four-hour flight within the US, you could demand for a hot meal before. Now, biscuits and cola will do and they are handed out to you by nonsmiling flight attendants, probably so you don’t ask for extra serving. Our own Philippine Airlines would have been solidly in the black were it not for the doubling of fuel prices. According to a PAL official, if the price of crude were $60 a barrel, the equivalent for aviation fuel is $70.

 

 

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