Philippine Airlines Opens Reservations for London Return

Philippine Airlines (PAL) has opened reservations for its anticipated return to UK skies, although surprisingly it appears that the carrier has been able to source lucrative slots at London’s Heathrow Airport for a new five times weekly link with the Filipino capital Manila from November 4, 2013. PAL is set to launch flights to at least five European cities as it seeks to quickly resume flights following the lifting of a three-year-old European Union ban that restricted the carrier from serving the continent.

A ruling in July this year that oversight improvements by the Southeast Asian nation’s aviation authorities meant it was now able to ensure compliance with safety regulations could also see new long-haul links introduced between Manila and Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Madrid Paris, and Rome within the next six months.

Although the ban has only been in force for three years, it is 15 years since Philippine Airlines last provided regular scheduled services to Europe. The carrier is now in a much stronger position to be able to serve the European market and the significant ethnic and leisure demand thanks to its recent fleet evolution. The routes are likely to be served using a mix of Airbus A330-300 and Boeing 777-300 equipment. PAL currently has a fleet of eight A330-300s and five 777-300s, the latter presently being used on routes to Sydney, Tokyo Narita, Toronto and Vancouver.

London Heathrow currently accounts for over one fifth of all passengers flying between Europe and the Philippines but was thought unlikely to be the destination for PAL in the UK capital, due to its capacity constraints. It is understood that the carrier had agreed a tentative deal to serve London Gatwick, but was able to secure some suitable Heathrow slots to launch the route.

Its current GDS inventory shows a far from perfect schedule with three different departure slots across the five weekly schedule, although these are all within a 25 minute arrival window in London (14:00, 14:15 and 14:25) and three hour departure period (16:15, 17:15 and 19:05). This means all five rotations will be able to depart Manila in the early morning and arrive back in the Filipino capital in the afternoon. The flights are scheduled to be operated using 777-300s.

According to MIDT data, an estimated 238,000 bi-directional O&D passengers travelled between Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport and London Heathrow in 2012, up 7.9 per cent on the previous year. As our analysis shows Cathay Pacific currently dominates this market with a 30.2 per cent share of the traffic.

In the table below we highlight the largest O&D markets in Europe from/to the Philippines last year. Unsurprisingly, the six city markets proposed by PAL are all within the stop seven European destinations by demand, the only addition being a second city in Italy, Milan. Cathay Pacific is the dominant airline between the two markets with a 20.2% share of the 2012 traffic, followed by Emirates Airline (15.4%), KLM (12.5%), Etihad Airways (11.4%) and Qatar Airways (10.9%).

Interestingly, among the markets not planned to be served from Manila is Manchester, the ninth largest O&D market between the Philippines and Europe. Passengers on this route could also benefit from the new PAL service, connecting at London Heathrow to the domestic flights of British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Little Red. It is unclear at this stage if PAL will have any codeshare and interline deals on the route. Traffic on the Manchester route is currently dominated by United Arab Emirates (UAE) hub carriers Etihad and Emirates as well as Asian carrier Singapore Airlines.

According to local media reports, the Philippines’ Tourism Secretary, Ramon Jiminez has suggested the new flights will help boost European visitors to the country to around 600,000 a year, up around 50 per cent on last year’s figure and a big step towards its stated goal of attracting 5.5 million total tourists on an annual basis. “More than providing Filipinos living and working in Europe with the most direct link to Manila, we hope to bring the best of the Philippines to Europe and the best of Europe to the Philippines,” added Ramon S Ang, president and chief operating officer, Philippine Airlines.