Philippine Airlines (PAL) said Friday it is ramping up its domestic and international flights for the upcoming holiday season to accommodate the rising demand.
“With the Christmas and New Year holidays just round the corner, we continue to build up our network of flights, adding new routes and beefing up other routes with more frequencies, even as we plan for new connections in 2025,” said Capt. Stanley Ng, PAL president and chief operating officer.
“Our goal is to help people reunite with their loved ones, and we’re committed to expand our services to meet the needs of our customers and make holiday travel as convenient as possible,” he said.
PAL ushered in the holiday season by inaugurating a thrice-weekly Clark-Siargao service on Dec. 3 and relaunching its long-awaited Cebu-Osaka Kansai route on Dec. 22.
PAL’s emerging hubs will gain flights to Korea for the season, with Cebu-Seoul Incheon flights to run from Dec. 21 to March 4, while Clark-Seoul and Kalibo-Seoul services run from Jan. 2 to March 4.
The flag carrier is fortifying its popular network of direct flights from Australia and the U.S., with an additional weekly flight from Melbourne until Jan. 12, on top of a recently launched service from Seattle and an increase to daily services from Brisbane.
It said to meet the rising holiday demand for the December 15 to January 12 period, PAL is mounting 74 additional round trip domestic flights between Manila and Davao, Bacolod, Cagayan, Iloilo, Tacloban, Busuanga (Coron), Caticlan (Boracay) and Legazpi (Daraga) as well as between Cebu and Caticlan, Bacolod, Butuan, Cagayan de Oro, Legazpi, Siargao, Puerto Princesa, Tacloban and Busuanga.
PAL said it is deploying more wide-body aircraft on high-demand regional routes such as Manila-Tokyo Narita, Manila-Bangkok and Manila-Singapore.
The peak season ramp-up follows PAL’s expansion of regular flights in the past few months including frequency increases on routes between Manila and Hanoi, Cotabato, General Santos, Cebu, Davao and Tagbilaran.
