The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Jerry Maglunog
Flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) will add at least 20 more local and international destinations this year, which began with the Cebu-Los Angeles flight on Mar. 15.
Jaime Bautista, president and COO of PAL, said the additional flights are just one condition for the flag carrier to attain a five-star rating.
“It’s not easy being a five-star airline, since it needs more long-haul flights, bigger and newer aircraft, good food, and, most of all, on-time arrival,” he said.
The airline announced this ambitious goal as it celebrated its 75th anniversary on Mar. 15. Bautista said there is no better way to celebrate their anniversary but to improve several notches higher from where the airline is right now.
The latest airline to get a five-star rating is Garuda Airlines of Indonesia. Garuda became the latest Asian airline to join the elite club after Singapore Airlines in 2009.
In unveiling its target, PAL asserted its role as the nation’s flag carrier representing the best of the Philippines to the world. It also changed its slogan to “the heart of Filipinos” and dropped “your home in the sky,” which has been in use for several decades.
“Our goal is to make PAL the airline of choice in all the markets we serve, one that exceeds passenger expectation.
We want PAL to be a source of pride for Filipinos,” Bautista added.
After the Cebu-LAX inaugural flight, next in line are the direct flights to Doha, Qatar, on Mar. 28, 2016 and Saipan on June 23.
“We are studying Paris (France), Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Hamburg (Germany) and Rome (Italy). When the new, long-range A350-900s arrive, we will be capable to mount more non-stop flights to Europe,” he said. At present, the flag carrier only flies to one European destination, London, via the Heathrow airport.
“Definitely, we’ve gone a long way since our maiden flight from Nielsen airfield to Baguio with just five passengers some seven-and-a-half de-cades ago,” said David Lim, the airline’s senior vice president of commercial operations.
Middle East route expan-sion, according to Bautista, will include more flights to Riyadh, Dubai, Dammam, Jeddah, all in Saudi Arabia; Kuwait City in Kuwait; and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
PAL is also adding six Airbus A350-900s to its fleet, bringing to over 100 its total number of aircraft.
“Choosing the A350 is an-chored on our operational re-quirements for our new routes. This will definitely strengthen our long-range fleet. Once de-livery begins in 2018, the air-craft can be deployed on our North American destinations: Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York in the US; and To-ronto and Vancouver in Cana-da,” Bautista said.
“The acquisition will en-able us to mount additional non-stop service on our pre-mium long-haul services,” he added.
PAL is scheduled to take the delivery of five A321s and two B777s this year, and two A321s in 2017. PAL’s current fleet includes B777s, A340s, A330s, A321s and A320s.
The airline is introducing myPAL e-Suite, an in-flight entertainment system with up-graded content. Other innovations include: myPAL player, the free in-flight entertainment app that allows passengers to stream movies, music and TV shows on their personal mobile device; the myPAL Wi-Fi, which allows passengers to surf the Internet in flight; and the myPAL Mo-bile, which allows passengers to use the roaming service in flight to call and text using their mobile-data plan.
To improve PAL’s inflight cuisine, some of the coun-try’s top chefs—Jess Sincioco, Fernando Aracama, Wataru Hikawa, Ben Lam, Bruce Lim, and Yoon Yun Sun—will soon start working closely with PAL corporate chef Noel Ramos to come up with new entrees rep-resenting Filipino and conti-nental dishes.
PAL also vowed to rein-force its corporate social re-sponsibility Program through its RPRSNT Pinoy! program, which has been in the fore-front of providing assistance to outstanding Filipinos, specifically young people, to enable them to participate in international competitions and represent the best of the Philippines to the world.