Big big question: Who will fly these planes??!!!
PAL to get 8 wide-bodied planes for US, Europe
By Riza T. Olchondra
Inquirer
Last updated 02:33am (Mla time) 10/21/2006
PHILIPPINE Airlines (PAL) will buy or lease eight new wide-bodied planes from either Airbus or Boeing to expand its routes to the United States and Canada and resume flights to Europe, company officials said at the unveiling Friday of the carrier’s newest aircraft.
The introduction the Airbus A319-100 launched the modernization of the airline’s fleet of single-aisle aircraft as part of a P840-million refleeting program.
The single-aisle planes can serve domestic and Asia-Pacific routes.
PAL may spend about $200 million for each of the additional eight aircraft to be acquired, its officials said. It wants four to be delivered in 2008-09 and the remainder before the end of 2011, they said.
“We will borrow from banks,” PAL chairman Lucio Tan, the tobacco tycoon, told reporters when asked where the airline would get the money for the fleet expansion.
“We can get the support of the export credit agencies, or US Eximbank, or we can do an operating lease,” PAL president and chief operating officer Jaime Bautista said in a separate interview.
Bautista said the PAL board would decide by yearend on what aircraft to order.
Bautista earlier said PAL was in the final phase of talks with three European export credit agencies on a loan of up to $600 million to fund its refleeting program.
PAL has nine wide-bodied planes flying to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco in the US and Vancouver in Canada. Five are Boeing 747-400s and four are Airbus 340-300s.
It will choose between the Airbus 340-600 and the Boeing 777-300 to fly to other international destinations, company officials said.
Bautista said PAL might fly to Seattle and San Diego initially. He added, “We’re looking at flying to [other cities in] California and ... to Europe.”
PAL stopped services to Europe in the late 1990s when it was hit by the Asian financial crisis and labor disputes.
It has slowly recovered through a restructuring program.