Russia Clears Siberian Airspace

Secures Daily Flight To Moscow

12 July 2014


The Russian Federation and the Philippine government has agreed Thursday to update its Air Services Agreement (ASA) by providing flight entitlements and overflight rights to the vast Russian Airspace where its respective flag carrier, Aeroflot and Philippine Airlines also agreed on the commercial terms for its service early this week. 

The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) met its Russian counterpart Tuesday in Manila.

While the two states have a mutual air service agreement, there was no provisions for seat entitlements other than the proposed route structure and the general agreement which prevented Russian and Philippine carriers from providing regular flight services between the two countries.

Russian tourists were among the top 10 foreign visitors to the country numbering close to 30,000 in 2013 mostly coming from the central and eastern region.

The Annex to the Air Services Agreement scheduled for implementation on 14 July 2014 will pave the way for Philippine Airlines (PAL) to overfly the Siberian Airspace towards North America and Europe for the first time in the airline's history.

PAL used to fly North America via Alaska for its flight to Toronto instead of a more direct path via Siberia. It also flies Europe following the routes via Bangkok, India and Iran, which is the same route flown by other EU and ASEAN carriers from Bangkok.

With the current agreement, PAL can now fly Toronto or New York on a more direct flight to Manila or London - Manila via Western and Central Russia saving the airline passengers 2-3 hours of travel time.

The new agreement also paves the way for PAL to profitably fly their A340-343X fleet to other European Cities such as Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam via the shorter Russian route which would otherwise be payload-restricted.

13 comments:

  1. yay!!!! that all i can say...

    ReplyDelete
  2. So Philippine Airlines can now cut their travel time to London, use Airbus A340-300 and brand new Airbus A330-300 to Europe, bring cancelled Airbus A330-300 orders back, and fly non-stop to Toronto, New York, and Chicago.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good for the airline and the pax

    ReplyDelete
  4. Are there details of the seat entitlements?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cathay pacific and Qatar way better than pal. And same price to London Heathrow. Qatars new 15 billion $ airport is amazing, worth a try. Pal is shit, and i hope they go down

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Havent been there, but 15bn$ must make a worldclass airport. Most of middle east have good airlines and good airlines with luxury product. Pity Pal! I avoid them whem i can

      Delete
    2. Qatar Airlines is state-owned and well-funded. If the playing fields were even, without government subsidy, I wonder how Qatar and other ME airlines will fare. PAL can never match Qatar's access to petrofunds.

      Delete
    3. Poster dated July 12, 2014 you're harsh than a sand paper. I guess you haven't thought of the people depending on the airline. For someone to think ill of someone you might be some mal educated buffoon. Your anonymity makes you bold as hell. Well I just pity you.

      Delete
    4. Poster jul 12-Ganyan mag comment nga bading at KSP naka pag abroad akala bigatin na!.

      Delete
  6. Abu dhabi midfield and new Incheon airport looks good! May Philippines get something similar soon?

    ReplyDelete
  7. 15bn$ is outrageous for an airport.. only the best for qatar airways, and the worst for philippines.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Just have one question: how much will Philippine carriers have to pay Aeroflot or whichever agency is tapped to collect these royalties? Because I think that is the issue. Even before today, PAL or any other carrier could fly through Russian Airspace; the problem was that carriers have long complained about exorbitant 'toll' charges by Aeroflot and the Russians.

    ReplyDelete
  9. A330neo (new engine option) has been announced by Airbus at Farnborough this week. May be the cancellation is for PAL to get a piece of this aircraft. It has longer range than the older A330s and a new Rolce Royce engine in which PAL have their new A330s with RR engines.

    But still I want PAL to put AVOD/IFE's and USB charging pods to their new aircraft and retrofit those to their current cabin products, rather having a wireless IFE with no USB charging pods to their seats.

    ReplyDelete