RSA's airline debut

Last Monday, Philippine Airlines president and CEO Ramon S. Ang (RSA) launched the new Boeing 777-300 ER at the Makati Shangri-la, signaling the flag carrier’s serious bid to reach higher altitudes. There was a lot of optimism especially from frequent fliers and Mabuhay Miles members, with RSA announcing a lot of new things in the pipeline.

Ramon Ang is known for his unorthodox type of leadership and out-of-the-box thinking, and his enthusiasm is certainly rubbing off as far as PAL shareholders and customers are concerned. The new PAL CEO gave guests – many of whom belong to the Premiere Elite and Million Miler categories – a glimpse of things to come, starting with plans to beef up capitalization by another $500 million plus new routes to New York Toronto, Paris and Frankfurt using new Boeing 777-300 ERs.

Boeing’s wide-bodied triple seven aircraft are said to be the most fuel efficient, with revolutionary features that loyal PAL customers would appreciate. This early, one could already see the physical changes that are taking place. Even the flight attendants have a “new look” – bringing expectations for the country’s flag carrier to higher levels. A lot of innovations geared for customer convenience include ticketing outlets at select Petron gas stations, iPads for long-haul flights and gourmet dishes from top rated chefs.

RSA said his strategy to turn PAL around is quite simple: modernize the fleet, expand the network and improve passenger service. The most immediate thing, however, is for the country’s Category 2 rating to be lifted.

PAL’s 4-million miler

Still on the Boeing triple seven launch, one of those present was Interdent Inc. founder Jerry Doviack. Interdent is a dental prosthetics company, and I’m told it is one of the biggest if not the biggest in the country, supplying laboratories across the United States and Europe. Jerry has been doing business in the country for over 25 years, and I understand he is also regarded as an inventor of dental items.

Those who know Jerry very well say he virtually travels out of a suitcase on account of his frequent flights visiting his businesses in the US and Europe. He finished his dental training in the United States and after spending some time with a dental ceramics company, he went full blast into his own business, starting small in 1970 and gradually expanding to several countries including the Philippines. He spends a lot of his time traveling and meeting customers and suppliers. He travels almost every week to Los Angeles – which should explain why he has chalked up four million miles as a PAL million miler.

Spy tidbit

Yesterday we were the guest speaker at the regular meeting of the Consular Corps of the Philippines, whose members are consular officials of the foreign embassies and consulates accredited to the Philippines. Some are career consuls while others are honorary consuls who are resident Filipinos.

The Consular Corps was established in 1975 to foster closer relations between the various representatives of foreign governments. Over the years, many of them have become close friends such as Honorary Consuls Tony Rufino; Oscar de Venecia; George Yang; Jun Periquet (currently the dean of the Consular Corps and Honorary Consul of Armenia); past dean Vince Carlos who is Honorary Consul of Cote d’ Ivoire; Consul General Steve Chapman of Canada; Consul General Michael Schimmel of the United States; Consul General Graeme Tinney of Australia; and Consul General Motohiko Kato of Japan, among many others.

Erratum

In our last Sunday’s “Babes Eye View” column, we wrote about the unsafe streets of Metro Manila and we mentioned a bag slashing incident at the outlet stores in Pioneer Street in Mandaluyong, identifying the victim as Mrs. Etsuko Urabe, wife of Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Toshinao Urabe. It appears that the victim was a visiting Filipina married to a Japanese, who was shopping at Pioneer when her bag was slashed. We sincerely apologize to Mrs. Urabe for the mistake.

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