20 May 2015
Adds Cairns to its route network
Adds Cairns to its route network
Flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) has announced that it will begin flights four times a week to New Zealand in December 1, 2015 via Cairns in Australia after the Philippines and Australia expanded its Air Services Agreement last month.
“Our new service allows PAL to cater to the travel needs of business and leisure travellers to Cairns and Auckland by offering direct services from Manila ” PAL President and Chief Operating Officer, Jaime J. Bautista said.
The airline currently flies to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Darwin.
“It will be our fifth destination in Australia” says Bautista.
PAL said Cairns stopover has fifth freedom traffic rights to Auckland. This sector will be serviced by Airbus A320s. Transit time in Cairns is one hour.
PR218/219 has the following schedules:
PR 218 MNL-CNS ETD 2345H ETA 0800H M-W-TH-SU
PR 219 CNS-MNL ETD 2330H ETA 0330H M-T-TH-F
CNS-AKL ETD 0900H ETA 1600H
AKL-CNS ETD 1830H ETA 2230H
The airline is also planning to grow its Darwin hub by flying back to Perth.
“Our new service allows PAL to cater to the travel needs of business and leisure travellers to Cairns and Auckland by offering direct services from Manila ” PAL President and Chief Operating Officer, Jaime J. Bautista said.
The airline currently flies to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Darwin.
“It will be our fifth destination in Australia” says Bautista.
PAL said Cairns stopover has fifth freedom traffic rights to Auckland. This sector will be serviced by Airbus A320s. Transit time in Cairns is one hour.
PR218/219 has the following schedules:
PR 218 MNL-CNS ETD 2345H ETA 0800H M-W-TH-SU
PR 219 CNS-MNL ETD 2330H ETA 0330H M-T-TH-F
CNS-AKL ETD 0900H ETA 1600H
AKL-CNS ETD 1830H ETA 2230H
The airline is also planning to grow its Darwin hub by flying back to Perth.
Why not use A330's for Auckland?
ReplyDeletethis is so sad! using a short haul single-aisle A320 for a long haul route? Passengers will surely be beaten up when they land in Auckland. Remember the Manila-Darwin-Brisbane flights were a total failure.
ReplyDeleteOh no its not a failure until now pal still fly on this routes.
DeleteA320? No way! Nobody wants to travel in that plane for more than 4 hours. This is one of the inferior offerings ever! I'd choose China Airlines or CX over PR. Just sad!
ReplyDelete^To the two comments above, remember that it's not a direct Manila-Auckland flight. It will stop at Cairns. Strictly speaking, it's actually two flights: Manila-Cairns, and Cairns-Auckland.
ReplyDeleteAs for using A330s, I don't know... I think PAL's A330-300s are too big. Maybe the 787 or the A350 is more appropriate for such a route.
Of which, PAL doesn't have either the B787 or A350.
DeleteActually, the A350 is as big as the A330, so it won't work. The B787 is the perfect answer to PAL's other problems in LHR, JFK, YVR, and YYZ! Why they didn't buy the B787-8 planes already built and waiting for a buyer is beyond me.
Seriously?! You are really expect an A330 to immediately service the two routes? This will be a trial period and easily the airline can upgrade the service to bigger aircraft when needed. It is still in the introductory phase and it might not be reasonable to fly with wide-body immediately. DRW-BNE is doing quite okay.
ReplyDeleteWow...some people really like to complain, just for the sake of complaining.
ReplyDeleteA320 is just appropriate for this route. The traffic is thin between these cities and they are trying to stimulate the market. Who knows, if it is really busy, then they might at least upgrade it to A321--before even considering A330.
It's a 4 hour trip between Manila and Cairns, 1 hour stop over and another 4 hour trip to Auckland. Just an FYI...PAL has competition on the CNS - AKL route, that is Air New Zealand, and they are also using A320!
I am also hoping that they do revive the Darwin - Perth route.
True, but ANZ doesn't make their passengers suffer an onward connection from Cairns, and look at that flight time. What little sleep you get will be disturbed when the plane lands and takes off again.
DeleteTheres nothing wrong flying with a320 medium haul flight, in fact i used to travel from manila to brisbane and stretch my body for 2 hours in darwin.
ReplyDeletedoes PAL have 5th freedom rights out cairns to auckland and back?
ReplyDeleteOf course!
DeleteAir NZ flies A320 to CNS-AKL too...
ReplyDeletePassengers dont usually care about the aircraft, let alone know aircarft type they are flying.