MANILA, Sept. 30 (PNA) — Flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) on Tuesday announced that beginning March next year, regular flights to New York will be open in a four-times-a-week-service.
This marks the airline’s network expansion to the United States east coast and the PAL’s longest route yet with a distance of 14,501 kilometers or approximately 16.5 total flying hours.
PAL chairman and CEO Lucio Tan said in a statement that the launch of these flights will coincide with the airline’s 74th founding anniversary.
The four-times-a-week service — Manila-Vancouver-New York — will operate at Terminal 1 of New York’s JFK International Airport. PAL will have full traffic rights between Vancouver and New York.
With the addition of New York as a destination, PAL will soon have five US destinations following Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu and Guam.
PAL noted that this development has been keenly anticipated by the huge Filipino-American communities along the U.S. eastern seaboard ever since it pulled out of the region in 1997.
Overall, the airline said that Filipinos on the East Coast account for 15 percent of the estimated 3.4-million-strong Filipino population in the US comprising a natural base market for PAL.
Flight PR 126 departs Manila every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at 11:50 p.m while arrival in Vancouver is 8:50 p.m. on the same day.
After a two-hour transit stop, the service continues on to New York at 10:50 p.m., touching down at Terminal 1 of JFK International at 7:00 a.m. the following day.
The return service, PR 127, departs New York at 11:00 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, arriving in Vancouver at 1:50 p.m. It departs the Canadian city at 3:20 p.m. and lands back in Manila at 8:35 p.m. the following day.
In this flight, PAL said it will utilize the Airbus A340-300 jets, which seats 36 passengers in business class and 218 in economy.
PAL said that with the New York service, it will also have the added benefit of boosting its Canadian operation.
From March 15, 2015, the current daily service between Manila and Vancouver will spike to 11 flights weekly with three departure times from Manila — mid-afternoon, early evening and late evening — providing wider schedule choices to passengers.
Manila-Toronto will add a fourth weekly frequency, increasing capacity on this long-haul route in time for the peak summer travel period out of Manila. (PNA)