|
THE Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) will seek bilateral
talks with the government of Macau to allow Philippine Airlines
(PAL) to add more flights to the Asian gambling capital.
A CAB official said the agency
would schedule a meeting with Macau aviation officials to appeal for
additional seat entitlements.
“We want to operate daily
flights to Macau by making use of our Airbus A320,” Jaime
Bautista, PAL president, said.
The PAL executive said the CAB
should ask for more than 1,000 seat entitlements a week. “The
current 550 seats a week are already being fully utilized. Many
airlines, not only PAL, want to operate and expand there,” he
said.
Cebu Pacific also wants to
operate out of Clark to Macau four times a week and daily to Hong
Kong. Macau had allowed the airline two weekly flights plus another
two extra section flights under a temporary permit.
Bautista said that for this year
PAL would also want to increase its flight frequency to Bangkok,
Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
“In Bangkok, we want to add
four more flights with our Airbus A320. We now fly there 10 times a
week,” he said.
PAL also has plans to increase
flights to Singapore by four more from the current 17 weekly
flights.
Bautista said the flag carrier
also wants to service nonstop flights to Jakarta from Manila to five
times a week. At present, PAL flies to Jakarta via Singapore.
“For KL, we would also want to
increase the frequencies by five more weekly. We also plan to
revisit the India route. These are our regional expansion plans for
the year,” he said.
PAL has extended its popular P88
fare promotion on any domestic route to the high Lenten days of Good
Friday and Black Saturday—a move seen to benefit travelers during
one of the peak travel periods of the year.
Covered by the promo are all
PAL-operated flights between Manila and Bacolod, Butuan, Cagayan de
Oro, Cebu, Cotabato, Davao, Dipolog, General Santos, Iloilo, Kalibo,
Laoag, Legazpi, Puerto Princesa, Roxas, Tacloban, Tagbilaran and
Zamboanga.
--Darwin G. Amojelar
|
