Philippines, Thailand Complete Amendments On Air Deal

MANILA -(Dow Jones)- The Philippines and Thailand have successfully negotiated amendments to an existing air agreement, which has increased available airline seats by nearly fourfold, a senior Philippine official said Monday.

With the new deal - effective over the weekend - each country's airlines can fly up to a total of 17,460 passengers per week, up from 4,500 previously, said Civil Aviation Board deputy director Porvenir Porciuncula.

He said the big increase was due mainly to the opening of the Clark airport in northern Philippines to flights to and from Thailand. He said 8,700 seats have been allocated for Clark for each country."For Clark, everything is new," Porciuncula said. "The same for Davao, which is also a new point outside Manila. The Davao-Thailand route can field up to 2, 110 seat entitlements every week."Davao is in southern Philippines.

Next month, the Philippines will pursue similar negotiations with Iran and Malaysia