FLAG carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) will soon operate four weekly flights to Osaka, Japan, and three weekly flights to Nagoya, Japan, from Cebu starting December 19 and 20 this year.
This is part of the company’s response to the strong public clamor for new routes to Japan, as it is the third-biggest source of visitor arrivals to the Philippines.
Data from the Department of Tourism showed a total of 310,901 arrivals as of January to August 2014, an increase of 5.95 percent from the 293,445 arrivals during the same period last year.
PAL operates 11 weekly flights to Haneda (Tokyo); 14 weekly flights to Narita (Tokyo); seven weekly flights each to Nagoya, Osaka (Kansai), and Fukuoka from Manila; and 14 weekly flights to Narita (Tokyo) from Cebu.
The new route, which will bring a total of 67 PAL flights to Japan per week, will start nine months after the carrier launched its flight to Haneda, which is the fifth gateway to Japan after Narita, Osaka, Fukuoka and Nagoya. The next biggest destination for PAL will be the East Coast in the US; and European destinations, such as Amsterdam and Rome.
As of end-June its fleet is composed of 85 aircraft, composed of six Boeing 777-300ER, four Boeing 747-400, five Bombardier DHC 8-400, four Bombardier DHC 8-300, 10 Airbus A340-300, 18 Airbus A330-300, seven A321-231, 28 Airbus A320-200 and three Airbus A319-100.
PAL Holdings Inc. successfully dished out an income backflip, after it posted a net profit of P1.49 billion in the second quarter of 2014 from a net loss of P1.08 billion in the same three-month period in 2013. In the same comparative periods, revenues of the airline operator rose by 47.4 percent to P27.30 billion from P18.52 billion, while operating expenses climbed by a slower P31 percent to P6.04 billion, from P19.47 billion.
Shares of PAL Holdings added 3 centavos to close at P4.08 on Tuesday.