May 27, 2013
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| PAL President and Chief Operating Officer Ramon Ang said today that the airline is set to fly Sao Paulo, in Brazil via Los Angeles soon. Ang said regulatory approvals is already underway and they are just waiting for the clearance for fly to south America's largest country. PAL is expected to extend one of its Los Angeles flights to Sao Paolo presumably the Airbus A340-300 morning departures. Under the current category 2 rating, the airline is allowed to fly only Boeing 747-400 and Airbus 340-300 aircraft to the United States. Ang said that North America is the most profitable destination for the airline accounting more than 40% of its revenue. The PAL President added that the Philippines has long secured from the United States fifth freedom rights to transport passengers originating in the US to a third country such as Brazil and vice versa. The airline intends to add Brazil to its international route network by 2014. Ang said the airline is expecting delivery of one more B777-300ER, 8 new generation A330-300, and 8 A321-200s in 2013. The new A330 is going to service the Middle East, Australia, Korea and Japan while the A321 is going to service some domestic and regional routes. Meanwhile, PAL is preparing a contingency plan in case the country fails to bag an upgrade in its aviation ratings this year as it seeks out lease proposals over some of its Boeing 777-300ER to defray the cost of maintaining the aircraft. PAL said it will add 4 interim fleet of A340-300 to augment its fleet to North America as contingency measure to the status quo rating if they cannot fly the B777 to the US . Ang disclosed that each aircraft costs $20 million a year to maintain and operate and some have no destination to fly to. The airline is supposed to use the six long haul planes for US expansion but only two of them fly to North America. |
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| PAL has prepared contingency plan in case the country fails to bag FAA category 1 ratings this year by seeking out lease proposals over some of its Boeing 777-300ER as it take four more A340s to fly San Francisco, Los Angeles and Honolulu. |
