LAST Friday, May 21 might as well be the start of a new milestone in Baguio's air transport accommodation with the coming in of a new airline, SkyPasada, which aims to inter-connect the city by air to various point in Luzon by way of starters. SkyPasada offers a 19-seater, twin-engine planes for its Loakan route. It's been almost five years ago when the last airline to service Baguio, Asian Spirit, ceased its city operations. Since airport, generally the only serviced government and privately operated airlines ferrying mostly government officials, business executives and tourists to this mountain city of pines.
The coming in of SkyPasada to Baguio recalls the time when top government officials planned to turn over Loakan airport to business locators of the Baguio Export Processing Zone. Only the strong and spirited objections raised by city officials and business concerns aborted what could have led to the closure of Loakan as an airport and its conversion into an expanded local export processing zone.
Years ago, it was the Philippine Airlines (PAL) which sustained operations at Loakan. PAL utilized the 50-seater Fokker planes. Later, PAL withdrew from its Baguio operation claiming it was not profitable as its other service lines. Years after the withdrawal of PAL from its Loakan operations, another airline, Asian Spirit, took over. This company also bowed out of its Baguio operations almost five years ago. City officials then began negotiations for another airline to strike yet another Baguio operation. This, too, failed.
Hopefully, SkyPasada, dubbed by its operators as the "Jeepney of the Sky" will fulfill its role as the only airline to link Baguio with the rest of the country. SkyPasada is owned and operated by the WCC Aviation Company headed by Capt. Ramon V. Guico III. SkyPasada is said to operate, at least 32 service units, some of them as training planes.
It's probably worth mentioning that before the coming in of SkyPasada whose Baguio operations officially begins Monday, May 24, plans have been made to use the La Union International Airport as a conduit for passengers programmed to come up to Baguio by motor via the Naguillian Road otherwise also known as the Quirino Highway. This would be a rather runabout way of flying to the pines city partly by plane and by land route.
SkyPasada's entry with its operation at Loakan started without much fanfare. Aside from members of the local media who covered the event in full force, Mayor Reinaldo Bautista, Jr. also joined in officially welcoming the latest airline to service Baguio.
Certainly SkyPasada answers the need of local residents and visitors for fast travel to and from Baguio whether for business or leisure. Congratulations to the officials and men of the WCC Aviation Company for filling in the void for local air travel, particularly to its president, Capt. Ramon V. Guico III.
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Airline introduces Baguio to North Luzon air traffic
BAGUIO CITY – Operators of the fog-wrapped Loakan Airport here have not seen a commercial plane land for three years now, due to a weather that has become a serious navigational concern for the airline industry.
But on May 21, they cheered alongside city officials when a 19-seater Sky Pasada plane touched down for its first official test flight from Cauayan City in Isabela to the summer capital.
In 2007, Baguio almost lost its only airport when domestic airlines stopped landing here after they expressed concern that the city’s daily afternoon fog was potentially hazardous to routine air navigation.
She included Loakan Airport in the government’s P100-million Aeronautical Highway of the North project.
Ramon Guico III, president and CEO of WCC Aviation, described Sky Pasada as “a rural airline that will connect the rural destinations all over the country.” Guico says the WCC Aviation intends to make the Baguio route as its Northern Luzon hub because it is strategic to servicing a market in Manila, Cauayan, Tuguegarao, Batanes and Boracay in Aklan.
The elected mayor of Binalonan, Pangasinan, Guico says the aeronautical highway project aims to rehabilitate existing airports and terminals in Cagayan Valley, Pangasinan and Isabela.
Sky Pasada operates two Russian-made LET 410 UVP-E passenger planes, which can land in short-field, semi-prepared or unprepared runways. The planes can take off and land even in the harshest flying conditions, Guico says.
“Therefore, the LET 410 UVP-E is very appropriate to make safe takeoffs and landings in poorly paved airstrips like Itbayat [in Batanes] for tough missionary flights,” he says. Captain Alito Getalaga, who piloted the Sky Pasada 45-minute test flight here, says Baguio fog remains a quandary for navigation. He says Sky Pasada would reroute flights to a WCC Aviation airfield in Binalonan on days when the Loakan Airport is not available.
Sky Pasada has opened three daily flights out of the city.
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