PAL adds routes, frequencies for holidays

MANILA, Philippines — Flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) is ramping up its flights to key domestic and international destinations this holiday season to serve higher passenger demand.

PAL said that it would mount more flights to popular domestic and international holiday locations to provide customers with more choices and greater flexibility.

To meet the rising holiday demand from Dec. 15 to Jan. 12, the airline 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 ushered in the holiday season by inaugurating a thrice-weekly Clark-Siargao service last Dec. 3, with a brand-new daily Manila-Cauayan route set to join its growing domestic network on Jan. 15.

For international destinations, the flag carrier is boosting its popular network of direct flights from Australia and the US 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.

PAL is also poised to relaunch its Cebu-Osaka Kansai route on Dec. 22.

Further, 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 will run from Jan. 2 to March 4.

PAL is likewise deploying more wide-body aircraft on high-demand regional routes such as Manila-Tokyo Narita, Manila-Bangkok and Manila-Singapore.

PAL said its peak season ramp up follows the airline’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.

“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,”  PAL president and COO Stanley Ng said.

“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,” Ng said.