PAL boosts overseas, domestic services

Philippine Airlines is ramping up services to key destinations in the Philippines and overseas such as Japan and the United States, ahead of the Christmas holiday season, the airline said Monday in a statement.

PAL said services to Japan received the biggest boost with the launch of two pioneering routes from Cebu, its main southern hub. These are flights to Osaka four times weekly, which start on Dec. 19, and to Nagoya three times weekly, starting Dec. 20.

These complement the twice-daily flights to Narita from Cebu.

PAL has also added four weekly frequencies to Haneda, Tokyo from Manila to bring the total flights between the two capitals to 11 weekly, as the airline gradually restores its erstwhile twice-daily service to Tokyo’s downtown airport.

Elsewhere in Japan, PAL has shifted to newer, larger aircraft on various routes, with the Airbus 321 replacing the A320 on Manila-Fukuoka; the A330-300 substituting the A340-300 on Manila-Nagoya, and the A330-300 supplanting the A321 on the morning service of Manila-Narita, upgrading the route to an all-wide-body operation.

PAL’s trans-Pacific services will likewise see significant expansion, with Honolulu going from four times weekly to daily from Dec. 11, along with the deployment of the new A330-300 in place of the A340-300 for this route.

It will add three weekly flights to San Francisco starting Dec. 12, raising the total frequency to 10 flights weekly. Los Angeles maintains its 11 weekly flights while Guam, which increased to a daily frequency earlier, switched to a new schedule that was more convenient to passengers.

On Nov. 22, departures from Manila to Guam shifted to a late-night slot (10:10 p.m.) from the previous early morning departure.

In the Middle East, PAL will augment its services to all four points in the region – a boon to the two million-strong Filipino communities there for whom a Yuletide homecoming is a cherished annual rite.

Abu Dhabi added two weekly flights to become a daily service from Dec. 1. Earlier, Dubai took on an extra frequency to go daily. Dammam will expand from three to five times weekly starting Dec. 9. Riyadh will rise from four to five flights weekly starting Dec. 15. All flights are operated with new A330-300 aircraft.

In the domestic sector, several popular tourist routes will see marked increases in frequencies to cater to brisk holiday demand. Bacolod swelled from three to five flights daily, Basco got a second daily flight and Tagbilaran had three times daily, all starting Dec. 1.

Busuanga, gateway to the northern Palawan, gets a third daily flight starting Dec. 29, plus extra sections on Dec. 26, 27 and 28. Caticlan, the airport closest to the resort island of Boracay, receives the largest increase, spiking from 61 to 70 flights weekly (or 10 times daily) from Dec. 4.

Other local destinations getting a boost in frequencies include Laoag, which goes double daily from Dec. 11; Puerto Princesa, three flights daily from Dec. 15; Butuan, two flights daily from Dec. 18, and Naga, three flights daily from Dec. 29.