PAL starts flying to NY again in March 2015

Philippine Airlines said it would revive its Manila-New York flights on March 15 next year, the flag carrier’s new management announced on Tuesday.

PAL said in a statement that the route, which made a stopover in Vancouver, Canada, would be Philippine Airlines’s longest, covering a distance of 14,501 kilometers and 16.5 hours of flying time.

The announcement comes after the United States’s Federal Aviation Administration restored the Philippines’ category 1 safety rating last April, allowing Philippine carriers to resume expansion in the US.

PAL operated flights to New York from 1996 to 1997 before financial constraints and the Asian financial crisis forced it to stop servicing the route and review the airline’s expansion plans.

“This auspicious start of regular flights to New York will coincide with PAL’s 74th founding anniversary,” PAL chair and CEO Lucio C. Tan said in the statement.

Tan recently reacquired management control of PAL from conglomerate San Miguel Corp.

The four-times-a-week Manila-Vancouver-New York will operate at Terminal 1 of New York’s JFK International Airport. PAL will have full traffic rights between Vancouver and New York.

The addition of New York will bring to five PAL’s US destinations, following Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu and Guam, according to the airline’s statement.

Flight PR 126 departs Manila every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at 11:50 p.m. Arrival in Vancouver is 8:50 p.m. on the same day. After a two-hour transit stop, the service continues on to New York at 10:50 p.m., touching down at Terminal 1 of JFK International at 7:00 a.m. the following day.

The return service, PR 127, departs New York at 11:00 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, arriving in Vancouver at 1:50 p.m. It departs the Canadian city at 3:20 p.m. and lands back in Manila at 8:35 p.m. the following day.

PAL will use the Airbus A340-300, which seats 36 passengers in business class and 218 in economy, for this route.

On board, passengers can expect to be pampered with PAL’s signature “at home” in-flight service, which features business class seats that convert to full-flat beds; in-flight entertainment system such as audio-video on demand in business; and gourmet cuisine designed by top international guest chefs.

The New York service will have the added benefit of boosting PAL’s Canadian operation. From March 15, 2015, the current daily service between Manila and Vancouver will increase to 11 flights weekly with three departure times from Manila—mid-afternoon, early evening and late evening—providing wider schedule choices to passengers.