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Philippine Airlines (PAL) is planning further expansion in Australia from 2018 when the airline takes delivery of the A321neo.
The long-range narrowbody is likely to lead to Philippine Airlines offering nonstop flights between Manila and Brisbane, president and chief operating officer Jaime Bautista says.
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Currently, PAL serves the Queensland capital via a Manila-Darwin-Brisbane routing using A320 equipment.
However, decoupling the service to offer a nonstop Brisbane service is on the cards thanks to the A321neo.
“That will happen in 2018 when we take delivery of the A321neoLR, the one with additional centre tanks,” Bautista told Australian Aviation in an interview on the sidelines of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines annual conference in Manila in November.
The Airbus website lists PAL as having orders for 21 A321neo aircraft, without breaking down the order into A321neo and A321neoLR variants.
The A321neoLR has a typical range of 4,000nm, while Brisbane-Manila measures 3,125nm, according to the Great Circle Mapper.
In May 2015, the governments of Australia and Philippines agreed to an expansion of the bilateral air services agreement that lifted the number of seats available for Filipino carriers operating to the four major Australian gateways of Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney to 9,300 seats per week.
In addition to Brisbane, PAL also flies nonstop to Melbourne and Sydney with a mixture of A340 and A330 widebodies, as well as a Manila-Cairns-Auckland service with A320s.
Filipino low-cost carrier Cebu Pacific is also on the Sydney-Manila route, as is Qantas.
Bautista said the airline was also keen to boost its existing daily service to Sydney, potentially to double daily, in 2018 as it took delivery of new aircraft and in recognition of the 10 per cent annual growth in the Australia-Phillipines market in recent years.
However, the veteran aviation executive cautioned that despite the double-digit growth, there remained plenty of capacity in the market, meaning yields remained under pressure.
“There should be more reasons for Filipino’s to travel to Australia and more reasons for Australians to travel to the Philippines,” Bautista said.
PAL has recently taken delivery of its eighth and final Boeing 777-300ER, while the airline has orders for six A350-900s.
Bautista said the Auckland service, launched in December 2015, was doing well, with the fifth freedom Cairns-Auckland sector helping sustain the route given the market was too small for nonstop flights from Manila to Auckland.
There are no nonstop flights between the Philippines and New Zealand. Air New Zealand did plan to offer a seasonal service from Auckland but shelved those plans in July 2016 due to what it described as “administrative delays in being able to make the new route available for sale”.
andrew Ferguson
says:Interesting that Philippine Airlines are considering the A321neoLR for the RPPM to YBBN service, especially as the A321neoLR has a reported range of 4000nm. This would mean that potentially Jetstar could deploy this airframe on services such as:YPAD to WSSS, or YMHB to WSSS, or YSCB to WSSS which are all well within the range of the A321neoLR or even potentially YPAD to VHHH again well within range, although YMHB to VHHH might be a stretch.
This would provide a very easy way to add additional services for Jetstar to offer International connections into Asia without using the few Boeing 787 Dreamliners they have, plus linking Hobart & Canberra direct services into Asia in competition with Singapore Airlines.
Harry H
says:And the likes of the Tigerair plan to use clunky old 737’s for short international flying is about to have its feet held to the fire as more and more of these airlines expand into Australia.
Kinda makes you wonder about the reality of these Debt ridden Virging/Tigerair model; Considering they are now moving to lower wages and conditions of front line staff, all the whil continuing to pay management big money and bonuses to boot is really showing you what fools they are!
Think about the need for pilots and cabin crew, and then think about the excessive training and they low wages that Tiger offer its crew, and ask yourself if the CEO will accept lower wages as well? Te answer is no and therefore should show you how serious they are at watering down Australian conditions and standards in place of pretending to expand into international operations…….. seems like a very fine line between closing the airline down with moves like this!
Time will tell and its going to be a very interesting time for Australian carriers!
Lance
says:For many years Qantas operated 3 times weekly to Mnl. One of these was via Bne so there was a direct service Bne/Mnl once per week.
Now they operate 6 times weekly and NONE are via Bne. QF has ceded that route to PAL with a tech stop in Drw.
Go figure that out!
Ian Deans
says:Andrew Ferguson, most readers would not have a clue to the four-letter airport codes you use in your comment.
Pilots might, but most general readers would not. If you need to use codes, could you use the standard three-letter IATA city codes which most Australian Aviation readers would understand?
Allan
says:Well said Ian. For example, I know that ADL and YPAD are the same place, But why not simply say Adelaide. etc.. etc.. or are we supposed to think “How learned they are”.