Overseas Filipino workers who traveled during the period of August 2012 to April 2018 may claim their terminal fee refund anytime at the Manila International Airport Authority administration building in Pasay City.
Airport authorities said the OFWs must present the copy of their plane tickets with locator code, or reference and a valid identification such as passport.
They added the claimants might proceed to the ground floor of the MIAA administration building Monday to Friday from 8 am to 5 pm except during holidays.
Thursday last week, officials of the Cebu Pacific Air and its sister airline Cebgo, remitted to MIAA P245,610,829 representing unrefunded terminal fees for unused or unflown tickets. “©
“©“We thanked Cebu Pacific and Cebgo for taking the lead on this. I am confident that the rest would follow soon,” said MIAA general manager Eddie Monreal.
In March 2017, all 40 airline companies operating at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport signed an agreement with the Department of Transportation and the MIAA to exempt OFWs from paying the P550 terminal fee.
Under the agreement, exemption from paying terminal fees shall be honored for OFWs at any point of sale, local and overseas and online.
“Our OFWs are our modern heroes for helping our country’s economy to grow through their remittances. The exemption is a way of giving our OFWs the recognition they deserve,” said Monreal.
Paying the terminal fee known as International Passenger Service Charge was imposed during the previous administration.
Monreal said he made the decision to scrap the policy after working on the technical details in coordination with the international airlines to eliminate the perceived obnoxious fee opposed by millions of OFWs.
The MIAA, during the last administration, integrated the cost of the international terminal fee on the cost of the airline tickets to alleviate the congestion problem in Manila airports.
The P550 terminal fee collected by the airport is used for the continuing operations of airports.
Total collections of the airport fee, which was imposed in February of 2015, had totaled more than a billion pesos and about half of this amount remains unclaimed by some OFWs which remains in the General Fund of Naia.
Records showed that the government collected P10.4 billion from NAIA passengers and airlines in 2015.
Out of this, government netted P5.44 billion: P1.22 billion as its 20 percent share from gross income, P1.27 billion in tax payments, and P2.94 billion in net profit.
About a third of Naia’s gross income came from the P550 international terminal fee and the P200 domestic terminal fee paid by passengers.
Bulk of the P3.85-billion travel tax collections in 2014 were paid by passengers who boarded flights in Naia.