|
DAVAO CITY—Flag
carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) estimates to fly 1
million passengers in the next 12 months of operation of
the new missionary routes it opened using its newly
acquired turboprop aircraft.
Jaime
Bautista, PAL president and chief operating officer,
said the airline would expect to attract this number
through its low-cost, no-frills flights that would
carry the brand name PAL Express, a division of PAL.
Most of
the secondary routes would be serviced by the nine
turboprop Q300 and Q400 aircraft, of which four of them
would be based in the PAL’s hub in Cebu City in Central
Visayas.
PAL
bought three Q300s and six Q400s for $150 million from
Bombardier Aerospace of Canada, which manufactured them.
Bautista
told reporters here over the weekend that 95 percent of
travelers frequenting these routes were Filipinos, but
he would expect foreign travelers and tourists, as well,
to pump more numbers.
“The
biggest beneficiary will be the traveler, who is now
able to tap into PAL’s extensive route network and enjoy
seamless connections between erstwhile inaccessible
provincial points and [the] 43 [existing]
destinations—and counting—across the Philippines, Asia,
Australia and North America,” a PAL media statement
said.
“In all
the areas that we operate, we intend to be in the No. 1
position in terms of passengers and revenues,” said
Bautista, when asked about getting into the destinations
already served by smaller airliners.
The new
Cebu-based operations would serve five destinations in
the Visayas and in Mindanao: Bacolod City in Negros
Oriental, Caticlan in Aklan,
Tacloban
City
in Leyte,
Butuan City
in Agusan del Norte and General Santos City in South
Cotabato.
The
Cebu-Caticlan and Cebu-Butuan routes would have one
daily flight each; and Cebu-General Santos with one
daily flight also.
These
operations would start on May 19, although PAL Express
would make its first operation on May 5 with eight
flights in the Manila-Caticlan route, the gateway to
Boracay.
A ninth
flight would be added to this route by the third week of
May,and a daily flight in the Manila-Busuanga route
would be started. Busuanga is in northern
Palawan, whose many resorts have gained rapidly growing interest
among domestic travelers.
All the
flights would be offered with promotional fares to
introduce the new services.
By the
end of May, PAL Express would put three daily flights in
the Cebu-Davao route, on top of the existing three
wide-bodied jet-aircraft service.
Bautista
said PAL was also looking at the Davao City-Zamboanga
City route, currently serviced by another airline
company.
The PAL
Express was patterned after the similar ventures of
several international airlines “where the legacy [or
parent] carrier establishes an operating division
intended to serve a market niche distinct from the
mainline operation.” The division would be managed still
by the parent airline, which would provide logistics and
administrative support, PAL said.
Among
these airlines were American Airlines’ American Eagle,
United Airlines’ United Express, Air
Canada’s
Jazz and Lufthansa’s Lufthansa Cityline.
PAL
Express’s Q300 seats 50 passengers and the Q400
accommodates 76 passengers. |
