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Philippine Airlines, also known as PAL, is the national airline of the Philippines. It is the first airline in Asia and the oldest of those currently in operation. With its corporate headquarters in Makati City, Philippine Airlines flies both domestic and international flights. As of 2005, it claims to serve twenty-one domestic airports and thirty-one foreign cities. Its main hub is Ninoy Aquino International Airport in the city of Paranaque. Its principal Asian competitors are China Airlines and Japan Airlines.

History

Philippine Airlines was founded in February of 1941, making it Asia's oldest carrier still operating under its current name. The airline was started by a group of businessmen led by Andres Soriano, hailed as one of the Philippines' leading industrialists at the time. Government investment in September of the same year paved the way for its nationalization.

It started operations in March 1941 with a single Beech Model 18 aircraft making one flight daily between Manila (from Nielson Field) and Baguio. PAL services were interrupted during World War II, which lasted in the Philippines from 1942 until 1945. In February 1946, after the war, PAL resumed operations with services to 15 domestic points. Its fleet consisted of five Douglas DC-3s. In July of the same year, a chartered DC-4 ferried 40 American servicemen to California, making PAL the first Asian airline to cross the Pacific. In December of the same year, it started regular service between Manila and San Francisco.

1947 saw PAL head to Europe with the acquisition of Douglas DC-4s. In 1951, PAL leased a DC-3 named Kinsei to Japan Airlines, which led to the founding of Japan's first airline. Six years later, PAL started services to Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Taipei using Convair 340s. Some nine years later, in 1962, PAL entered the jet age with the Douglas DC-8.

In 1965, PAL was once again privatized when the Philippine government relinquished its share of PAL. Benigno Toda, Jr., the PAL board chairman from 1962, acquired a majority stake in the airline. A year later, in 1966, PAL started services to the southern cities of Cebu, Bacolod, and Davao using the BAC1-11.

PAL continued expansion with the arrival of its first Douglas DC-10 in July of 1974. However, three years later, the Philippine government re-nationalized PAL with the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) holding a majority of PAL shares. In 1979, the Boeing 727, the Boeing 747-200, and the Airbus A300B4, called the Love Bus, joined the PAL fleet. The "Love Bus" would enter service to Singapore later in the month.

In 1982, PAL would started services to Paris via Zurich. Five years later, PAL overhauled its domestic fleet with the launch of the Shorts SD360 into domestic service. A year later, the Fokker 50 joined the domestic fleet. A year after that, in 1989, the Boeing 737 joined the fleet.

PAL was privatized again in January of 1992, when the government sold its share of PAL to a holding company called PR Holdings. However, a conflict as to who would lead PAL led to a compromise in 1993, when former Education Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez was elected PAL president by the airline's board of directors.

In November of 1993, PAL acquired the Boeing 747-400. The aircraft was delivered through the Subic Bay International Airport and was carrying then-President Fidel Ramos, who was headed home from the United States after an official visit there.

In January of 1995, Lucio C. Tan, the majority shareholder of PR Holdings, became the new chairman and CEO of the airline. Two years later, PAL acquired its first Airbus A340-300. In 1999, PAL consolidated its international and domestic operations at its Manila hub with the opening of Ninoy Aquino International Airport's Terminal 2, named the Centennial Terminal.

However, PAL suffered heavy losses in the mid- to late 1990s. Service was drastically cut during the Asian financial crisis, which lasted from 1997 until 2001. Services to Europe, under the helm of General Manager Heinz van Opstal, were dismissed and Europe offices were soon forced to close down. In addition, PAL eliminated most of its domestic destinations as its domestic fleet was scrapped to keep PAL afloat during the crisis.

In 2000, PAL finally returned to profitability, making some 44.2 million pesos in its first year of rehabilitation, breaking some six years of heavy losses. Later that year, PAL sold its maintenance and engineering units to Lufthansa Technik AG. That company became responsible for the maintenance of the PAL fleet. In August of the same year, PAL opened an e-mail booking facility. The system allowed passengers to book their flights and receive a reply within 24 hours.

In 2001, PAL continued to gain a net profit of 419 million pesos in its second year of rehabilitation. In this year alone, PAL restored services to Sydney, Busan, Taipei , Jakarta, Vancouver, Ho Chi Minh City, and Bangkok, while launching new services to Shanghai and Melbourne. A year later, PAL restored services to Tagbilaran and Guam. During 2002, the PAL website was relaunched, and its frequent flyer program, called Mabuhay Miles, was launched, combining PAL's former frequent flyer programs: PALsmiles, Mabuhay Club, and the Flying Sportsman, now renamed Sportsplus. The PAL RHUSH (Rapid Handling of Urgent Shipments) cargo program was also relaunched.

2003 saw PAL returning to Kuala Lumpur and flying to Okinawa. PAL also launched the "Online Arrival and Departure Facility", which allows passengers to view actual flight information. PAL also launched a new booking system with new features, like booking flights without having to log-in to the PAL website. In December of 2003, PAL also acquired a new Boeing 747-400, the fifth of the PAL 747 fleet.

In 2004, PAL launched services to Las Vegas to mark its 63rd year of service. PAL also returned to Laoag and started services to Macau on an agreement with Air Macau. The airline also saw a return to Europe with the return of the airline to Paris and Amsterdam on agreements with Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The service to Paris, however, was inevitably cut, due to the merger between Air France and KLM. PAL also continued an overhaul of its fleet with the arrival of two new Airbus A320s and continued modernizing its ticketing systems with the launch of electronic ticketing. In March of 2005, PAL started services to Nagoya, making it PAL's fifth Japanese destination.

On November 11, 2005, PAL restored scheduled flights to Beijing after a 15-year hiatus due to low revenues on the route. This service will be thrice-weekly and will use Airbus A320 aircraft.

On December 6, 2005, PAL and Airbus signed an agreement for the purchase of eight brand new Airbus A320s and the lease of an additional four A320s and A319s (two of each type) from G.E. Capital Aviation Services (GECAS). The agreement includes options for an additional five A320s. Delivery of the new aircraft is scheduled to begin from second half of 2006. In March 2006, PAL announced a deferral of the delivery of the first of the two A319s, slated for the second half of 2006, to 2007 because of a lack of pilots.

Incidents and accidents

  • On May 23, 1976, a BAC 1-11 burned on the tarmac in Zamboanga City when hijackers supposedly detonated a hand grenade in the cabin. 10 passengers and 3 hijackers were killed.

  • On December 11, 1994, a small bomb exploded below the seat of a Japanese businessman on Philippine Airlines Flight 434. The businessman perished, but none of the aircraft's other 293 passengers and crew were killed. The Boeing 747-200 landed safely. Investigators later found that Ramzi Yousef, a terrorist suspected of being a part of Al-Qaida, planted the bomb there to test it out for a terrorist attack he was planning, Project Bojinka. The plan was foiled after an apartment fire in Manila led investigators to the laptop computer and disks containing the plan.

  • In 2000, Philippine Airlines Flight 812, en route from Davao to Manila, was hijacked by a man with marital problems. The hijacker was pulled out of the aircraft by a flight attendant and used a parachute in escaping, with none of the other passengers and crew being injured or killed. The hijacker died when his parachute failed to deploy.

Livery and Logo

The name "Philippines" is located across the front part of the fuselage. The logo, consisting of blue and red triangles with the sun on the blue triangle, came from the design and colors of the Philippine flag, with the exception of the three yellow stars on a field of white.

Destinations

Fleet

Philippine Airlines operates a total fleet of thirty-two modern wide-bodied and narrow-bodied passenger aircraft as of June 2006.

The average age of the fleet listed above is 9.2 years old as of June 2006.

In addition, Philippine Airlines currently has the following aircraft on order.

In May 2006, Philippine Airlines announced its medium-term fleet plan, covering fiscal years 2006 to 2011. The plan aims to increase and/or replace the current fleet with new additional aircraft for a complete fleet of 43 wide- and narrow-bodied aircraft at the culmination of the refleeting and expansion program. A major overhaul of the narrow-bodied fleet includes the phase out all remaining Boeing 737 aircraft by October 2007, maintaining instead a fleet of 18 brand-new Airbus A320-family aircraft from 2008 onwards. The wide-bodied fleet plan also looks to increase the current medium-haul fleet of eight Airbus A330 with two additional mid-range aircraft between 2007 and 2009, and the long-haul fleet of five Boeing 747 and four Airbus A340 with six additional long-range aircraft between 2007 and 2011. Aircraft being considered for the wide-bodied fleet plan include the Airbus A330-300, A340-600, A350XWB, and A380, and the Boeing 777-300ER, B787, and 747-8.

External links

Official website:

Regional PAL websites:

Other websites:

Airlines of the Philippines | Companies of the Philippines | 1941 establishments

Philippine Airlines | Philippine Airlines | Philippine Airlines | Philippine Airlines | フィリピン航空 | Philippine Airlines

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Philippine Airlines".

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