Taifun season and travel in the Philippines - cancellation of domestic flights and ferry boats are frequent

During Taifun season - approximately April/May until November/December - you may have to accept cancellation of airplanes and ferry boats in various parts of the Philippines. Taifuns are powerful and a real danger to any traffic by air or sea. Subsequently flights might either be delayed or rescheduled by many days.

If arriving in the Philippines from abroad with a remote destination within the Philippine islands this delay may be of no particular problem, except that your bookings all need to be rebooked and changed up to several days

If however you plan a ferry boat or by air from an island toward Manila or Clark airport with an ongoing international flight out of country you may permanently lose your international flight or at least have substantial additional rebooking fees to carry depending on your international ticket selected.

Keep in mind that Taifuns usually are known a few days in advance. It is your responsibility to watch the local weather TV and find out when and in what part a Taifun is approaching. For outgoing travelers it might thus be advisable to schedule their flights to their out of country airport a few days ahead of time to assure catching the international flights.

Like in my own current case - with flight canceled to Caticlan with destination Boracay island - there are additional cancellations possible. For destination Boracay - the flight goes via Caticlan and then by small ferry boat. in the current Taifun case - even if the airplane flies - the ferryboats to Boracay island are "grounded" by order of coast guard for safety reasons. Hence you may finally arrive at your destination airport but be cut off your final island destination due to rough seas.

Taifun occur frequently in the Philippines - a few dozen per season. that means an average of one Taifun per week - or 2 directly following each other. Most Taifuns only affect a part of the Philippine islands - half or one third of the country

Here some links for time, weather and temperature in the Philippines - Angeles City - Clark Airport:

Philippine Weather and Temperatures and Clark Airbase - Angeles City, Weather and Temperatures

love and bliss

hans