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Monday, August 22, 2005
PAL fetes flyers, shippers
By Edwin G. Espejo
WITH father and daughter duo, Haji and Rachel Alejandro, providing the entertainment, Philippine Airlines (PAL), the country's official flag carrier, hosted a sumptuous dinner for its valued shippers all over Mindanao last August 12 at the spacious Phela Convention Center.
The occasion was PAL's 6th Annual Madayaw Awards, a yearly affair that honors its, local executives, shippers and agents all over Mindanao.
No less than PAL President and Chief Operating Officer Jaime Bautista graced the occasion.
"Your region has consistently been one of our brightest growth areas in terms of sales," he told a huge crowd composed of travel agents, airline executives and local businessmen.
Mindanao, he revealed, posted a hefty 17 per cent increase in their revenue estimates.
Bautista also took the opportunity to announce that PAL would fly direct to Beijing three times a week starting November.
No wonder the motif for the night was Chinese.
Most local PAL executives came in their cheongsam and the beverage products from the Lucio Tan group of companies flowed freely.
Soon, he said, flying PAL would be a ticketless affair with the development of e-ticketing scheme.
And with the continuous upgrading of its fleet, PAL is strengthening its position as the leading carrier in the country.
"The acquisition late last year of three A320 jets to serve domestic and regional routes (has brought our total of our Airbus 320 fleet to six). (It) is now the mainstay of narrow-body fleet as we gradually replace the older Boeing 737 aircraft," he further regaled the crowd.
Of course, the celebrities for the night were the various awardees, some of them going home with first class round trip tickets to destinations anywhere in the North America.
Among them is Jake Lu, owner of General Santos City-based MGTR, who was given a special award for registering the highest cargo volume (tuna) of shipment.
PaL's Dipolog Station was voted the airlines top station in Mindanao while the station that topped in excess baggage sales went to Catabato City
Highest positive variance in freight sales went to General Santos while the positive variance in passenger sales went to Davao City.
The list of awardees was very long it could not be accommodated in this article.
But worth mentioning is the presence of Gensan's and South Cotabato's prominent personalities.
Seen huddled in one table were, TSP's Domingo Teng, East Asia Royale Hotel's Rombar Bartolome, Joven Chua and Philip Chua.
South Cotabato Representative Arthur Pingoy came in his red polo with wife in tow. He later joined the table of PAL president Jaime Bautista and General Santos City Treasurer Marcelino Dospueblos.
Of course the night would not be complete if you won't mention the highly-charged performances of Haji and Rachel who awed the crowd with their rendition of rock and roll which they segued later into duets of yesteryear and today's popular ditties.
For Bisaya stories from General Santos.Click here. (This section is updated every Monday)
(August 22, 2005 issue)
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