Rather than exploring new destinations, PAL is thinking of mounting more flights to its most travelled routes in the region such as Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, India, South Korea, Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, among others.
“More on expansion of routes,” said Bautista when asked of the airline’s expansion plans this year.
“China is a growing market. We have flights to Beijing. We need bigger planes to Shanghai and Xiamen. These are all growing markets. South Korea also continues to grow. Likewise, traffic in Singapore, Bangkok and India is also growing,” said Bautista in an interview.
“Our [passenger] load factor is in the high 70s to low 80s,” he added. The passenger load factor is the ratio of revenue passenger miles to available seat miles of a particular flight.
PAL, he said, carried about 9 million passengers in fiscal year 2010-2011. “This is slightly lower than last fiscal year’s figures at 9.3 million because domestic passengers who used to fly with PAL flew with Air Philippines [now known as AirphilExpress], which is a subsidiary of PAL,” Bautista said.
PAL is set to announce its April 2010 to March 2011 financial results this month. “There is a turnaround from last fiscal year’s loss of about $14.3 million,” said Bautista, without providing details of the airline’s financial performance. “The report is still being finalized. Final figures will be released next week.”
PAL, he said, will post profits on account of an improved traffic and good economic condition in the US.”
“America will continue to contribute a big share in our revenues, especially if we add more flights to the US. In Canada, we expect bigger revenue owing to the Boeing 777’s thrice-a-week operations there. But there is a slowdown in our Japan traffic,” said the PAL president. Japan was hit by twin disasters in March—a destructive earthquake and massive tsunami in the northeast part of the country.
Overall, the PAL official said 2011 is yet another challenging year for the airline industry given the surge in jet fuel price which has gone up to $125 per barrel compared with last year which ranged between $100 and $115 per barrel. “Turmoil in the Middle East continues which may lead to even higher oil price,” he noted.
