MANILA – Philippine Airlines will ramp up services to major international and domestic destinations during the upcoming peak summer travel period, highlighted by the upgrading of its Vancouver service to a daily frequency and the addition of flights to local tourist hotspots Boracay and Busuanga.
From March 23, PAL will operate a direct flight to Vancouver every Monday and Wednesday, filling the only two days of the week when the service does not operate.
Unlike the other five days, however, the new service will not continue on to Las Vegas and will operate simply on a turnaround basis.
It injects much-needed capacity into PAL’s Vancouver route, the only direct link between Canada and the Philippines, and has long been sought by the sizeable Filipino migrant community in Canada as well as by the business and leisure segments of the market.
PR 116 departs Manila every Monday and Wednesday at 1:05 p.m., arriving in Vancouver at 10:20 a.m. the same day. The return service, PR 117, departs Vancouver at 1:00 p.m. and arrives in Manila at 5:50 p.m. the next day.
Widebody Airbus A340-300 aircraft, which seats 264 passengers in a bi-class layout, will continued to be deployed on the route.
The existing five-times-a-week service from Manila to Vancouver, onward to Las Vegas and vice-versa, operated every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, will be maintained.
Meanwhile, PAL will add one weekly flight each to its popular trans-Pacific services to the U.S. West Coast gateways of Los Angeles and San Francisco for the duration of the summer.
An extra Airbus A340-300 flight will operate to Los Angeles every Friday from April 10 to June 19 while another A340-300 flight will serve San Francisco every Sunday from April 12 to June 21.
The additional flights increase total frequency to Los Angeles to ten times weekly and to San Francisco to eight times weekly for the summer.
In the domestic sector, the flag carrier’s low-fares, turbo-propeller unit PAL Express will mount more flights across its network of secondary domestic routes, particularly to island destinations that are huge tourist draws during the summer months.
From March 20, PAL Express will add one daily flight between Manila and Caticlan, gateway to the resort island of Boracay, boosting total frequency on the busy route to 11 flights daily.
On the same day, PAL Express will operate a second daily frequency between Manila and Busuanga, the largest of the Calamian group of islands in northern Palawan that host the country’s most exclusive beach resorts.
The new frequency is an afternoon service that complements the current morning flight. PR 033 departs Manila at 1:00 p.m. and arrives in Busuanga at 2:05 p.m. Return flight PR 034 departs Busuanga at 2:30 p.m. and arrives in Manila at 3:35 p.m.
PAL Express will also add two weekly flights between Cebu and Cagayan de Oro to increase total frequency to five times weekly.
Likewise, PAL will augment its regular jet services between Manila and Bacolod, Butuan, Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, Kalibo, Legazpi, Puerto Princesa and Tacloban with additional flights of varying frequency throughout the summer season.
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