By Perla Lena/PNA
ILOILO CITY — Philippine Airlines (PAL) will “review very carefully” its expansion plans in response to clamor from Ilonggos and other stakeholders for the airline company to open a direct international flight from the Iloilo International Airport.
“We are of course working on our crystal ball in evaluation studies so that we can now consider flights out of Iloilo as well,” said Jose E. L. Perez de Tagle, PAL vice president for corporate communications in a press conference held here Tuesday.
He said in the past, they may not have enough aircraft to “handle a multiple number of routes from different hubs in the Philippines.”
“But now that we are in the expansion mode that means more growth and more opportunity,” he said, adding that last year, PAL has acquired 15 new airplanes.
In 2018, PAL launched twice a week flight from Antique to Clark, making it the only airline flying in all commercial airports of Panay. It has flights from Caticlan and Kalibo in Aklan, Roxas City in Capiz, Antique and Iloilo International Airport in Iloilo.
“This is something exciting for people of Panay including Iloilo. We expect that there will be more and more people flying through Antique and maybe one way and another way out of Iloilo. So, we will be able hopefully to stimulate traffic out of Panay,” he added.
This year, he announced that they will be opening three new regional routes from Manila to Hanoi, Vietnam and Phnom Penh in Cambodia in March and New Delhi, India in April.
There will be five flights a week to Phnom Penh and four times a week to Hanoi, Vietnam, as he said that they are “opening up the capitals of ancient Asia”.
“We hope to have some good news for you in the future not maybe in the very near future but starting within a year’ time we hope to be able to introduce regional flights out of Iloilo,” he said.
Currently, they have 10 flights to various destinations in the Philippines from the Iloilo International Airport.
The PAL’s executives are currently in town as they are staging a free concert dubbed “Mabuhay Night” in support of this year’s Dinagyang Festival t to be held at the SM Iloilo South Point on Thursday.
“We are here participating in the festival for the first rime offering a free concert in Iloilo because we believe we have to be where the heartbeat of the nation is by participating in the festivals, in fiestas in the communities,” he said.
