FLAG CARRIER Philippine Airlines (PAL) is targeting to increase its passenger volume to over 20 million by 2021, as it adds more flights.
“From 15 million passengers (projected) in 2017, we project to carry more than 20 million passengers in 2021 — from foreign visitors to our OFW [overseas Filipino workers] heroes, families, and the men and women who run businesses,” PAL President Jaime J. Bautista said in a recent forum.
PAL reported the number of passengers it carried in 2016 increased by 12% to 13.35 million, from 11.9 million in 2015.
This year, the Lucio C. Tan-led airline continues to expand its fleet as it adds new routes for both domestic and long-haul flights.
“We will grow our fleet to 87 aircraft today to at least 96 by 2021. In doing so, we will phase out 18 older aircraft and take delivery of 27 brand new airplanes,” Mr. Bautista said.
In late July, PAL took delivery of the brand new Bombardier Q400s, which will be used for domestic routes. In August, a Cebu-Caticlan route marked the first PAL Q400 flight.
“Later this year, PAL is taking delivery of Boeing 777 aircrafts, favored by passengers on trans-Pacific journeys, to complete the Boeing fleet of 10 777s for deployment to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver and London-Heathrow,” Mr. Bautista said.
The flag carrier is also set to boost its operations between Manila and London Heathrow with the deployment of the 370-seater Boeing 777-300s beginning Sept. 19.
PAL will also add A321 NEOs 2018-24 for flights to Brisbane, New Delhi, Perth, Mumbai, and other Asia-Pacific destinations, as well as A350s 2018-19 for nonstop flights to New York, Chicago, Seattle, and other destinations in Europe and North America.
PAL will introduce nonstop flights on the Manila-Auckland route starting Dec. 6, making it the only Philippine carrier to offer the quickest flight service to the New Zealand city.
Last week, PAL revived its proposal to build a P20-billion ($400-million) annex to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 to cope with the continuing to congestion at the NAIA terminals. Mr. Bautista said infrastructure concerns exert “undue pressure” to the future growth plans of the airline.
PAL uses NAIA Terminal 2 as its main hub and also operates at Terminals 1 and 3. Mr. Bautista cited the limited space as well as the conditions in Terminal 2, such as lack of close-in parking, for proposing the building of an annex.
The planned annex is designed to handle 12 million to 15 million passengers per year and would be able to serve 12 to 17 wide-bodied and single-aisle jets.
PAL swung to a net loss of P1.66 billion for the first half of 2017, a reversal of its P4.61 billion net income last year, on the back of increased expenses primarily attributed to flying operations and maintenance. — Patrizia Paola C. Marcelo
