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Wednesday, December 07, 2005
PAL buys 18 aircrafts for refleeting program
By Aurelia l. Castro
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
MANILA - Philippine Airlines (PAL) inked a purchase agreement with Airbus yesterday for its fleet modernization program, which includes the acquisition of 18 units of Airbus A320 family aircrafts.
The deal, which is approximately $840-million, will allow the flag carrier to have fuel cost-saving aircrafts, said Jaime Bautista, president and chief operating officer of PAL in an interview yesterday.
Bautista said compared to other aircrafts that require different trainings for its airline crew, Airbus aircraft also has the advantage of “commonality” that would spare PAL from spending on trainings.
The signing of the agreement yesterday at Shangri-La, Makati included an order for nine brand-new A320 jets (with an option to add five more) each with 12 Mabuhay (business)-class and 144 economy-class seats and the latest in-flight entertainment system in both classes “further distinguishing PAL from competing carriers.”
In addition, PAL will also lease two brand-new A320s and two A319s from GE Commercial Aviation Services, said to be the world’s largest aircraft lessor.
“With this refleeting program, we might increase the frequency of our flights with our Cebu-Manila routes from our current seven flights a day to having a flight every hour a day,” he said.
Bautista added that the possibility of increasing the frequency of flights to Cebu would address the demand of the traveling market.
“It is still under study but it is not a far possibility,” he said.
The refleeting program will allow PAL to give better service offering, he added.
New fleet
In a separate interview, Andrew Huang, senior vice president-general counsel of PAL, stressed that PAL strives to be the best value airline and not just “the cheapest airline.”
“It’s not about offering the cheapest service, but of giving the best service, comfort, safety and reliability,” he said.
The new Airbus aircrafts will be delivered in the second half of next year and will be delivered until 2008 while the option aircraft, should PAL take them up, will start arriving from 2009 until 2012.
By December 2008, PAL will have an all-new narrow-body fleet, giving the airline “the advantage of operating a uniform fleet, with one aircraft type, one engine type and one bi-class cabin layout.”
Paul Kiteley, senior vice president for customer affairs-Asia of Airbus, a European airplane manufacturer, said in his speech that PAL is “no stranger” to them.
The flag carrier acquired its first Airbus A300-B4 in 1979 and became the first airline in the world to operate the full range of new-generation Airbus aircrafts, consisting of the A320 and its wide-body cousins, the A330 and the A340 in 1997.
Currently, PAL operates a mixed fleet of 14 narrow-body aircraft, comprising seven A320s, four Boeing 737-300s and three Boeing 737-400s. It also operates eight A330s and four A340s.
(December 7, 2005 issue)
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