PAL income rises 15% to $22.85M in 9 mos

The Lucio Tan-owned Philippine Airlines Inc. posted a net profit of $22.85 million in the nine months ending December last year, 15 percent higher than the previous level’s $19.87 million, mainly due to higher passenger and cargo revenues.

For the October to December 2006 quarter, however, PAL incurred a net loss of $2.9 million, slightly higher than the $3.1 million loss posted in the same period a year earlier.

Revenues for the April to December period last year amounted to $944.3 million compared with $895.15 million a year earlier. For the latest quarter period, revenues reached $303.4 million or an increase of 1.5 percent from the previous same quarter figure of $298.9 million.

In a financial report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, PAL said its revenues were boosted by surcharges as well as interest and other income.

Expenses rose 5.28 percent to $921.48 million from $875.28 million owing to higher costs related to flying operations and reservation and sales to offset the decrease in other expenses.

PAL said the significant increase in flying operations was attributable to depreciation expense for flight equipment and cockpit crew cost. The increase in depreciation expense of $4.2 million or 18.1 percent was basically due to the effect of the change in residual value of the flight equipment.

As of end-2006, PAL had total assets of $1.97 billion, a slight improvement from the March 2006 figure of $1.969 billion. Liabilities, on the other hand, rose 16 percent to $89.1 million.

PAL is considering acquiring at least eight wide-bodied aircraft to expand its routes to the United States and Canada and to return to Europe after an absence of about a decade. The planes, which are estimated to cost around $200 million each, will arrive between 2008 and 2009.

PAL is in the final phase of talks with three European export credit agencies to secure a loan of up to $600 million to fund its refleeting program.

The airline now has nine wide-bodied planes — five Boeing 747-400s and four Airbus 340-300s — flying to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the United States and Vancouver, Canada.

PAL flies to 19 domestic and 24 international destinations. It wants to expand its foreign routes to include Seattle and San Diego initially.

PAL, which ceased operations briefly in 1998 due to labor disputes before entering into a 10-year rehabilitation program, is aggressively expanding to further strengthen its dominant foothold in the industry.