Philippine Airlines is set to increase its flight frequencies to Japan and Australia, starting in October, to meet the expected surge in demand during the winter and year-end travel seasons.
The airline will add flights on three Japan routes during the Northern Hemisphere winter season, including 21 weekly flights each on its Manila-Tokyo and Manila-Osaka routes, up from 14 weekly flights. It will also increase flights between Manila and Sapporo to five times weekly from three.
The additional services are expected to increase PAL's Japan operations to 87 weekly flights, providing customers with greater flexibility and strengthening tourism, business, and cultural exchanges between the two countries.
The airline will also increase flights to Melbourne and Perth during the Christmas and New Year travel season, and will operate selected Sydney and Brisbane flights using larger aircraft to increase seat capacity.
The seasonal enhancements are designed to support the strong demand from Filipino communities in Australia, holidaymakers, and visiting friends and relatives traveling during the year-end peak season.
The airline's parent company, PAL Holdings, Inc., posted a 1.15% decrease in attributable net income for the first quarter, but saw a 11.67% rise in gross revenue to P52.43 billion.
The airline carried 4.30 million passengers in the first quarter, up 6.1% from a year earlier, due to post-holiday demand, network resilience, and capacity expansion.
Shares in PAL Holdings closed unchanged at P2.60 apiece on Tuesday.
