Robbery on Marinduque's Sky

I found the following article published on the Philippine Daily Inquirer written by Ramon Tulfo, dated June 6, 2012 very upsetting. This article I could identify personally because I also patronized Zest Air twice a year during our snow birding sojourn in Marinduque- our second home. Last year I paid only P4,200(about $100) for a round trip fare between Manila and Marinduque. I like to purchase my tickets about three months ahead of time if at all possible. Like the author of this article, I hate taking the bus and the ferry, not only because it is time-consuming but also because I am prone to sea-sickness.

If this price of an an airfare from Marinduque to Manila and back continues, I have a feeling this will discourage a lot of tourists to the island. I can not imagined paying $350 for a 25 minute air plane ride. The $100, I paid last year is reasonable. Is there an office in the Philippines that regulates the airline industry? Incident as described in the article is ridiculous and a hindrance to the tourism business in Marinduque.

There ought to be a law against airlines that charge its passengers exorbitant fares. I booked a Zest Air flight to Marinduque on June 2, and was charged P9,400 for a round-trip ticket that would be used a week later. The P9,400 fare charged by Zest Air for a flight to an island 25 minutes from Manila was ridiculous.

It’s P400 less than the fare charged by Philippine Airlines for a round-trip ticket—P9,800—to Davao City which is 1 1/2 hours from Manila.

So I put off buying the ticket because I thought I would just take a bus to Lucena City and then a ferry to Marinduque, an island-province in Southern Luzon. But then I found that the trip by land and sea to Marinduque takes hours, and so I finally decided to take Zest Air, the only airline servicing the Manila-Marinduque route.

And you know how much I was being charged after one day? P10,200 for a round-trip flight! Again, I had second thoughts about paying an exorbitant fare for a 25-minute flight, so I postponed buying the ticket.

But for the third and last time I decided to take the Zest Air flight because I didn’t want a long trip by land and sea. You know how much Zest Air charged me for the round-trip ticket four days before I use it?

I was told the ticket would cost me P14,870!( about $350 US) In a matter of a few days, Zest Air increased its fare to Marinduque by 54 percent. If that’s not air-highway robbery, I don’t know what is.