General Admission
Sad day for PBA in Dubai
By Al S. Mendoza
HAS it happened to you?
You hold a confirmed, round-trip ticket, say Manila-New York-Manila.
Usually, your departure date for New York is stated in the ticket. Also, your trip back to Manila from New York.
Because you were able to depart Manila for New York on the mentioned date, it follows that when you finally decide to leave New York for Manila, everything should also be in order. You will also be able to board your flight on the appointed date.
Almost – but not quite.
Seemingly, Gulf Air had given us an altogether different view of things when traveling home on board their jets.
Apparently, Gulf Air has a whole set of rules distinctly apart from the rest of the world’s airlines.
Read on, fellas.
Late in June, 80 passengers from the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) were able to board their Gulf Air flight from Manila to Dubai.
They were to play two games in Dubai – Talk ‘N Text versus B-MEG (B-MEG won) and Talk ‘N Text versus Barangay Ginebra (TNT won).
On their flight for home on July 2, the entire 20-person delegation from Talk ‘N Text were bumped off. The 60 other PBA passengers were allowed to leave on board Gulf Air that day.
Weird is the word because the TNT delegation had checked in first, way ahead of the B-MEG and Ginebra delegations.
Gulf Air explained later in a letter to the PBA’s Melvin Mendoza, the PBA’s legal counsel, that the cancellation of TNT’s booking was “due to unsettled payments…”
Strange, if not totally absurd.
How can a confirmed ticket not be duly paid, not be duly settled?
If the 20 members of the TNT delegation did hold tickets with “unsettled payments,” why were they boarded in Manila for Dubai?
They should have been disallowed outright to board their Gulf Air flight in Manila bound for Dubai.
Funnier still was Gulf Air’s further explanation to my primo Mendoza: “…while we were not responsible for the cancellation of the booking on July 1…we treat [the case] as an isolated experience …and we hope to do business with you again in the future…”
What? Gulf Air was not responsible for the cancellation of TNT’s departure from Dubai to Manila on July 2?
What? It was an isolated experience? Just like that?
PBA Commissioner Chito Salud, a brilliant lawyer himself, has vowed never to stop pursuing the case “until the guilty culprits are brought before the bar of justice.”
Just right.
Not only is TNT’s name being somewhat sullied here but, more significantly, the entire PBA institution.
That Gulf Air line, “unsettled payments,” has a bad ring to it, too.
TNT, the PBA, accused of being involved in a con game?
Yeah, Commissioner Salud, go for it!
Chase them up to the ends of the earth.
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