The Department of Tourism is (DoT) urging the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) to take action to remove the country from the list of countries with carriers banned from European Union air space.

The country’s inclusion in the updated list resulted in a significant loss in tourist traffic from Europe, the DoT said.

“The EU ban is a big constraint for the European tourist market. There is a strong demand for our product in Europe and until the ban is lifted, we cannot fully take advantage of such tourism prospects,” Tourism Secretary Ace Durano said.

The EU included the Philippines in its 13th updated list of countries with carriers banned from EU airspace as a precautionary decision based on the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (USFAA) downgrading of the country’s safety rating to Category 2 and the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) concerns on aviation safety regulators.

The prohibition prompted travel insurance companies in Europe to advise travel operators that tour packages to the Philippines which include elements of domestic air travel will not be allowed travel insurance coverage. Tour operators in turn had to cancel bookings with the difficulty in selling travel packages to the country which include inter-island travel by air.

“Since the tour operators are not allowing the tourists to take additional domestic flights, a lot of the traffic from Europe flies straight to Cebu and rides ferries to visit neighboring islands,” Durano said.

Durano explained that the longer the country remains in the blacklist, the harder it would be to recover from revenue losses.

“If we resolve this matter by the second quarter we can expect a positive recovery in the third and fourth quarters with the strong demand for our destinations,” he said.

“This is not an issue about our local carriers being unsafe; they have their own incentives to secure the safety of their airlines. What should be resolved is the capability of the CAAP to ensure the United States government and the European Commission that our airlines are indeed safe,” Durano said.

Durano noted that the big task is to really improve the capability of CAAP which are internal and administrative in nature. He is also hopeful that the EU inspectors arriving next month will see the progress done by CAAP and eventually lifts the ban.