UFN – how I hate it!

UFN – Until Further Notice is an expression you read in all schedules and announcements in Philippines’ transportation. UFN correctly translated means:

YOU CANNOT RELY ON US !

If you read the schedules of Cebu Pacific Air, then you encounter this silly UFN on each other line or even each line.

This UFN clause allows airlines and maritime companies to cancel trips at any time! This is economically very interesting for the airlines and shipping companies. A trip without enough reservations or bookings? No problem, they simply cancel the trip. For passengers it is a horror-trip!

And then the N for Notice

If one is lucky, they send a text message when an already booked trip is cancelled. But this is rather the exception. And most of the messages are sent too late.
If you are not so lucky, you find a notice on the ticket stall in the port that there is no trip. Or even worse, the ticket counter is closed and nobody knows nothing.

Oceanjet again

We have friends who want to come to Camiguin. Because of this UFN Monster, they had to change their trip schedule already 3 times. If you live in the Philippines, you may be more flexible than a guest flying in from overseas. When we are traveling, we always make plans A, B and C. With these 3 plans have a 90% chance to arrive in time at our destination. The last 10% are absolutely not manageable – low preesure areas, floods, typhoons and other natural causes can hardly be planned in advance. Sometimes we have to accept “Rien ne va plus!” 

The Philippine government invests millions in tourism campaigns. But tourists are so afraid of missing connecting flights or being stranded on a little island that they prefer a more reliable destination for their hard earned vacation.  The government could stop this random behavior: The related regulation agencies could insert a revocation clause in their transportation permits.

[GARD]