PAL eyes Canada expansion

Philippines Airlines (PAL) is reporting brisk sales for its new flights from Manila to Toronto that is expected to begin next month.

“Yes, we are sure to fly to Toronto. In fact, I was told our tickets were sold out,” PAL president Ramon Ang told reporters, referring to the airline’s 2nd foray into Canada.

The flag carrier is asking the Philippine air negotiating panel for another, as well as separate, seven flight entitlements for the Manila-Toronto route. This request is on top of the existing 7 flights-a-week the panel allocated to PAL for the Manila-Vancouver route. 

These flight entitlements are sealed and agreed during bilateral negotiations between the air panels of both countries. In turn, each panel allocates the agreed number of flight entitlements to their local commercial airlines. 

Philippine Airlines, has been banned from the skies over Europe but will continue its operations in Canada, officials said, adding they hope the ban will be lifted soon.

The European Union’s executive banned all airlines from the Philippines in 2010 from flying into Europe, arguing that their safety standards were too unreliable. 

Europe’s airspace is tightly monitored to prevent accidents, with almost 300 airlines from around the world banned from flying there. 

Currently, Philippine Airlines (PAL), Asia’s oldest flag carrier, has a daily Manila to Vancouver to Las Vegas, back up to Vancouver and on to Manila operation.

It serves the growing Filipino-Canadian community and a huge influx of temporary foreign workers that seek jobs in Western Canada. Philippines is one of the largest sources of foreign workers in Canada, after the U.S.

Given its limited flight entitlements now, PAL will temporarily carve out its 3x-a-week Manila-Toronto maiden operations from the current 7x-a-week Manila-Vancouver operations. 

PAL’s Manila-Vancouver operations will then only have 4x-a-week, according to PAL officer-in-charge for commercial group Rafael Rollan.

“Ideally, if we can secure another 7 or more, that is what we want,” said Rollan.

In the meantime, PAL is also trying other means. It is eyeing to lease some of the flight entitlements the Canadian negotiating panel allocated to Air Canada, which is not mounting flights for the route. 

“We wrote them (Air Canada) a letter but they have not responded to us. They also have 7 but unutilized entitlements. Hopefully, they could lend us their frequencies through code-share because this arrangement was done before,” said Rollan.

Felix Cruz, PAL Vice President Marketing Support, confirmed that the Filipino carrier is indeed ready to expand overseas. But it will all depend of civil aviation authorities in the United States and in Europe. Its  brand new aircraft, Boeing 777-300 ER , which will be able to fly 14,000 km non-stop, is the new pride of PAL. 

“We want to fly to New York, add extra flights to our current network in the USA but we wait for the US CAA to upgrade again Philippines civil aviation to category 1 from category 2. I know that the government works hard to convince US authorities that safety in our countries reaches the best standards but there is little we can do. In Europe, Filipino carriers are all on the EU blacklist. We do our maintenance with Lufthansa and pass successfully IATA safety audit IOSA. There is little we can do ourselves and we now hope for a partial lifting of the EU ban, at least for us”, said Felix Cruz. 

Meanwhile, a report said Philippines has placed a firm order for an additional 10 A330-300 widebody passenger jets from Airbus in Toulouse, France.

The latest purchase agreement follows a major aircraft order from the airline in August for 44 single-aisle A321s and 10 A330s under the carrier’s fleet modernization program, Airbus officials say.Philippine Airlines is choosing the 240 tonne high gross weight version of the A330 that offers extra range capability, Airbus officials say. This will enable the airline to operate the aircraft non-stop from Manila to any destination in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as to the Middle East and Hawaii.“This additional order will complete our current medium-to-long range requirements under our fleet modernization program,” says PAL Chairman Lucio Tan.