As said in the news today, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines has released an order grounding budget airline Zest Air for “continuously violating safety standards”.
For that, here's Zest Air's management Press Release statement against the suspension order:
“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 management of ZestAir have been in full cooperation with CAAP in ensuring that the maintenance programs and policies of ZestAir are in place. All findings in CAAP’s letter have already been appropriately addressed and we believe that they do not merit suspension and grounding of our operations.
We wish to highlight and reiterate that all eleven (11) aircrafts are safe and airworthy. We will never risk the safety of our passengers. The reason why management in the past weeks have decided to voluntarily stop our aircraft from flying is to proactively ensure that any issues discovered, are rectified or properly addressed before we use the aircraft for commercial operations.
With due respect to CAAP, our reports on how we addressed the incident in Kalibo reflected this and is confirmed by CAAP inspectors that no maintenance procedural lapses were committed and that the aircraft concerned is not subject to any technical problems. The incident in Tagbilaran would have been addressed sooner had we not been required to have the maintenance rectification inspected by CAAP personnel. It is unfortunate that Tagbilaran airport has only one runway and ramp, and this is the reason why the incident snowballed to have affected so many passengers.
Our accountable manager is Ambassador Alfredo M. Yao who is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Zest Air.
In addition, all our mechanics have valid licenses to perform their jobs despite CAAP’s concern where one of our mechanics did not possess the license physically on him but was stored within the work area. Furthermore, none of our pilots or crew are exceeding their duty time limitations.
ZestAir will be submitting a copy of the comprehensive improvement program that is currently being implemented in ZestAir to provide our passengers an improved experience, product and services. We have been investing significantly in our operations and fleet to further raise the standards of excellence across all aspects of personnel, parts, and maintenance/technical services.”
