PAL expanding capacity to serve top destinations
BY MICHAEL PUNONGBAYAN

WITH expected increase in travel both domestically and internationally because of the summer vacation, Philippine Airlines (PAL) yesterday announced it is expanding capacity on flights to several popular domestic and international destinations for the next three months.

The country’s leading airline said services to five domestic points – Davao, Kalibo, Tagbilaran, Cagayan de Oro and Tacloban – will be augmented with more frequencies and higher-capacity aircraft from late March to early June.

PAL said Davao receives the biggest boost with two daily flights added to the regular thrice-daily service. The new frequencies represent a nearly 40 percent capacity increase on the main route to Mindanao.

The service to Kalibo, gateway to the resort island of Boracay, goes from twice-daily to thrice-daily during May as PAL puts in an extra 1,092 seats weekly on the country’s most popular tourist route over this peak month.

The announcement said capacity to Tagbilaran more than doubles as a second daily flight, utilizing the 134-seater Airbus A319, is added, also for the duration of the month of May. The route is presently served by 114-seater Boeing 737-300.

PAL said Cagayan de Oro receives a fourth flight, initially four times weekly from April 21 and then daily from May 7 to June 3, while Tacloban gets a third flight every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday during May.

PAL announced that its international timetable for summer features frequency hikes for its services to Beijing, Xiamen, Nagoya, Okinawa, Seoul, Busan, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Vancouver. Beijing service adds a flight every Monday to go to five times weekly, while Xiamen goes daily.

Nagoya, likewise, goes daily with a new Monday service and Okinawa gets a third weekly flight. PAL also boosts its Korea trips with extra Airbus A320 flights every Monday and Friday during May to go six times weekly to Busan, while Seoul adds a second daily flight using the A320 to augment the regular A330 service.

"The trans-Pacific services receive a much-needed capacity boost with an additional wide-body A340 flight every Tuesday (from April 17 to May 22) to Los Angeles and every Sunday (from April 22 to May 20) to San Francisco," PAL’s advisory said.

"The service to Vancouver and Las Vegas adds a flight every Friday to go five times weekly for the duration of PAL’s summer timetable until October 27," the airline company said.