Philippine Airlines cuts losses in H1 2021

The parent firm of Philippine Airlines (PAL) has pushed back new aircraft deliveries by nearly a decade while implementing sweeping cost-cutting measures that allowed it to reduce losses in the first semester of 2021.

In its latest financial report to the Philippine Stock Exchange, PAL Holdings Inc. also detailed continued declines in revenues. It said a financial restructuring plan was underway but provided no details.

From January to June this year, PAL said losses dropped by 21 percent to P16.55 billion while total revenues, over 60 percent coming from passenger ticket sales, fell 51 percent to P18.04 billion.

“The COVID-19 outbreak and the measures taken by the Philippine and foreign governments have caused disruptions to PAL’s passenger operations, resulting in temporary suspension and limited operations of its flights both for domestic and international routes,” PAL said in its latest report.

Lower losses came as the operator of the region’s oldest commercial carrier drastically cut costs.

Total expenses were slashed by 48.5 percent to P26.83 billion during the period. It said most of this came from the reduction in flight operations, maintenance costs and manpower expenses after PAL cut about 30 percent of its workforce on March.

The company also deferred large capital expenses such as the acquisition of new aircraft, the report showed.

It said aircraft that were due for delivery from 2020 to 2021 were rescheduled and postponed to 2026 up to 2030.

“PAL’s aircraft delivery schedule was revised to align with the forecasted recovery of travel demand,” PAL Holdings said in its report.

PAL said it had also returned two aircraft to lessors last July: an Airbus A321-231 and a Bombardier DHC 8-400.

The flag carrier ended the period with 95 planes versus 97 last year.

PAL Holdings said in its annual report there were 13 more A321s set to be delivered in the coming years.

Meanwhile, PAL Holdings saw its capital deficiency in the first semester of 2021 jump by 25 percent to P92.6 billion.

It has yet to provide details on an earlier-disclosed plan to raise additional funding of P24.25 billion from its major stockholder apart from loans from private and government banks to bolster its balance sheet. INQ