PAL eyes flights from Clark

Flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) wants to start overseas flights from Clark International Airport in Pampanga province within the year, starting with daily flights to Incheon in South Korea, company president Jaime Bautista said Monday.

The plan was among steps PAL was taking to allocate a small portion of its operations away from crowded skies around Manila’s premier Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).

Clark International Airport, while being the closest air gateway alternative to Metro Manila, still struggles to lure traffic mainly due to its distance from the capital district and the lack of efficient mass transport options.

The Department of Transportation under President Duterte has been backing wider support for Clark International Airport, urging airlines to allocate a bigger share of their operations there while promising that infrastructure would get built.

Bautista said they planned to start small, or by allocating about 10 flights in Clark International Airport a day. That compared with the carrier’s roughly 150 daily flights operating in Manila, Bautista said.

Recently, the carrier said 29 domestic flights operating in Manila were cancelled at the start of this month. “There is congestion in Manila, so we cannot expand our operations,” Bautista told reporters at the sidelines of a $38-million loan signing deal with Taiwan’s Cathay United Bank Co. Ltd. “We have to look at other airports.”

The Gokongwei family’s Cebu Pacific Air is the only domestic carrier with commercial operations in Clark. International carriers operating in Clark include Emirates, Qatar Airways, Asiana Airlines, Jin Air, Cathay Pacific/Dragonair and Tiger Air.

The syndicated term loan PAL secured with Cathay United was to partly cover the acquisition of an Airbus A321-200, Bautista said.

PAL accepted the delivery of an Airbus A321 last Aug 27. This brings its A321 fleet to 24 planes. PAL said the aircraft, which has 199 seats, including 12 for business class, would be used for Cebu flights. PAL added that it expected two more A321 planes before the end of 2016. A PAL spokesperson said the carrier had 79 aircraft, which included long-range Airbus A330s and Boeing 777-300ERs.

Bautista said new plane acquisitions were part of incremental steps the carrier was taking to become a “five star” airline in five years. PAL is currently ranked a three-star carrier, according to Skytrax.