LEGACY carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) is in constant search for more aircraft to sustain its plans of flying to more destinations out of Asia, a ranking official said.
Ryan T. Uy, the company’s VP for Sales, said his group is now evaluating whether to exercise its option to purchase additional six Airbus A350s as it will soon retire “a part” of its Boeing 777 fleet.
“We are studying it, as we are constantly looking at new aircraft. We want to see our fleet grow up to a maximum of 99 aircraft by 2021 with the delivery of new A321 neos,” he said.
Currently, PAL has a fleet of 98 plans, consisting of five Airbus A350-900 XWB, 10 Boeing 777-300ER, two Airbus A340-313, 15 Airbus A330-343, 24 Airbus A321-231, six Airbus A321-271neo, seven Airbus A320-214, 12 Airbus A320-214, three Bombardier Q400, 10 Bombardier Q400 NG and four Bombardier Q300.
Uy added the carrier also intends to fly to more destinations out of Asia.
“We are seriously looking at Seattle for North America. Chicago is also an option. For Europe, we are seriously looking at Paris or Rome,” he said.
For these destinations, PAL has to use long-range, wide-body jets.
“Asia is also a key market for us, so we are adding routes from North Asia and Southeast Asia, where we will increase frequencies for certain routes and more route pairs,” Uy said.
The legacy carrier is studying the viability of Delhi and Bombay for India, and for China, the airline is also looking at opening services to Huangzo and Chengdu, while increasing frequencies to Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen and Jinjiang.
“For Southeast Asia, we are also increasing the frequency for Indonesia and Malaysia,” Uy said.
Currently, PAL flies to 43 international and 35 domestic destinations.