Top 5 Ways to Avoid Delays when Flying SEAIR to Batanes

During my recent trip to Batanes, I experienced first-hand the perils of flying to a place with notoriously unpredictable weather, fluctuating passenger traffic and a single air carrier acting like it has everyone at its mercy. Bleh! My experience with SEAIR has really been horrible, their customer service and concern for passengers is non-existent, probably because they know passengers have no other choice. It's actually good that they fly to Basco - it's a public service for the local citizens and for tourists - but please, get your act together! At least give your paying passengers the service they deserve and live up to your SEAIR CARES statement.

ANYWAY, I don't want to delve into that. Let's move forward! Hahaha! I had my flight delayed twice, and a total of 4 days. The locals say the record so far is 2weeks stranded in the island, so I still had it good. For the good of the traveling public, I decided to compile this list of practical tips from my personal experience that will help you around possible flight delays and other similar problems. I hope you will find this helpful.



1. PEAK SEASON IS THE TIME TO GO - this is a cliche, but really the most practical thing to do because there are apparently 2 primary reasons why flights get canceled or delayed: (1) Bad Weather, and (2) Not Enough Passengers. Best time to go when weather is good and more predictable is March - July, according to the locals. The second reason is what people whisper about as the secret reason. Of course when I confronted SEAIR they said this is not true. Flying during peak season means most of the inbound and outbound flights are fully booked, so it will be a safe bet for most passengers.

2. PICK THE FIRST FLIGHT - seasonally, SEAIR adds more flights to generate additional  passengers. But most of the travel agencies who book for them push their passengers to the earlier flight or the fixed daily schedule. Related to what I said in the previous item, a flight that has more passengers will have a smaller chance of being canceled. I think the seasonal flights that they add have a higher risk of being canceled - because they open a new flight, book only half the seats... well that's my theory. What we experienced personally was that our group was split into 2 flights back to Manila. The first group flew on sked, we on the 2nd trip had to stay an extra 4days after it was canceled.


3. VALIDATE WIND CONDITIONS - what I found out is that SEAIR planes only have the capability to fly in wind conditions less then 26 knots. Anything more than that, means that a flight can be delayed or canceled altogether. Visit the website www.windfinder.com and search for Basco wind conditions. They have a 1week forecast, which seems accurate. One time, the BCTA lady said that the wind was going to be over 30knots in 3 days. True enough on that day, the flight was canceled due to strong winds. Check our winds conditions in Tuguegarao too, since the plane flies through there. If it's more than 26knots, there'sa big chance it will be delayed or canceled.


4. CHECK FLIGHT STATUS IN ADVANCE - apparently SEAIR changes schedules and moves flights around, but they're not too proactive in informing their passengers about it. What happend in our case was that we were informed our flight back to Manila was canceled only 2 days before the actual flight. With some information from the travel agency we were talking to, we found out that they actually canceled the flight as early as 2weeks before. The travel agency of course informed their passengers about the change, so they were able to rebook people accordingly. Since we purchased online, no one from SEAIR took the initiative to inform us until it was too late. So to be sure, check every now and then leading up to your flight to see if there are any changes.

5. WHEN CANCELED, REBOOK ASAP - if and when your flights gets canceled, SEAIR will probably say one of two things: (1) There will be an additional flight on XX date, we are moving all passengers there, or (2) We are trying to get an additional flight, we will keep you posted. Hmmm, do you notice the glaring difference? Hehe. If you hear Number 1 - that's a good sign. But if their statement sounds like Number 2 - chances are it won't happen. I personally heard that so many times and it never materialized. Take matters in your own hands, call the hotline, look for the next earliest flight and have your ticket rebooked. Don't wait for them to do this for you, because seats might run out.

My last piece of advise, make sure you GET TRAVEL INSURANCE because you will never really know what will happen. This is just P250 per head when you buy the ticket through SEAIR. You can get coverage of P1,000 per day because of flight delays, on top of other benefits like accident and medical insurance. This is a valuable enough reason to protect you from any mishaps.

I also got the following numbers from the BCTA office of some people from SEIAR you can bug in case of problems. Remember that BCTA is just their ground crew and logistics handler in Basco, so they really can't do a lot in case of problems like this. Better to call SEAIR directly:

Patrick Tan - VP for Commercial Affairs (09197432552)
Leo Gimena - Executive Assistant to the VP (09178547480)

Good luck on your travels!!