President Benigno Aquino 3rd’s ambitious mandate to the Department of Tourism (DOT) to hit 10 million tourist arrivals by the end of his term in 2016 may no longer be so with the resurgence of a more aggressive and dynamic national carrier in Philippine Airlines.

On November 30, Philippine Airlines (PAL) finally rolled out its first major route expansion since San Miguel Corp. partnered with the Lucio Tan Group in April of this year via the inaugural non-stop flight between Manila and Toronto.

The service marks the return of the airline’s presence in the North American East Coast after 15 years, affording Filipino-Canadians and Canadian citizens alike easier access to the Philippines.

In his speech to send off the very first passengers of PR 118 at NAIA Terminal 2, PAL president Ramon Ang promised that the non-stop Toronto service is only the beginning of “new routes to more exciting destinations,” and as such, the opening of more gateways to the country.

For DOT, the flag carrier’s pledge is a huge boost to their goal of increasing visitor arrivals by 1.5 million year on year, since the Philippines is highly dependent on air access.

“If you compare [the Philippines] with many Asian countries, we do not enjoy cross-boarder travel,” explained Tourism Assistant Secretary Benito Bengzon Jr. at a press conference following the inaugural flight at The Shangri-La Hotel Toronto. “Ninety-nine percent of tourists to the Philippines travel by air, which is why PAL’s Manila-Toronto flight and future efforts in expanding routes is very valuable to the DOT.”

To put things into perspective, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are generally grouped together in tour packages onboard cruise ships, which significantly pushes their individual tourist arrivals in the neighborhood of 20 million annually. The Philippines’ target for 2012, as cited by President Aquino in his June 30 state of the nation address, is 4.6 million.

Filipino first
Philippine Airlines vice president for marketing support Felix Cruz, who led the three-man panel at the Toronto press conference [along with Bengzon and Tourism Undersecretary Daniel Corpuz], reiterated the airline’s support in boosting Philippine tourism when he elaborated on how the Toronto non-stop service has been designed.

He said PAL flights from Toronto every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday will arrive in Manila before 6 a.m. giving passengers enough time to connect to the airline’s 32 domestic destinations, which include among others, the world-famous Boracay island via Caticlan; the rich Queen City of the South in Cebu; and Puerto Princesa in Palawan, whose Underground River was declared in February as one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature.

“Through PAL’s direct service, we want to showcase the exciting opportunities between Manila and Toronto in terms of tourism, culture and trade relations,” he added.

In response, Bengzon interposed, “We are very happy that PAL opened up this route because Canada is actually the No. 9 market of the Philippines for tourism.”

“Tourism is the fourth largest dollar earner in our country,” added Corpuz, “but with developments like this to prop up our ‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines, campaign, we’re sure to meet our goals.”

Cruz also pointed out that besides helping the government boost visitor arrivals, the airline’s driving force in route expansion efforts is its steadfast commitment to Filipinos all over the world.

Citing the statistics on which PAL based its decision to resume flights to and from Toronto, he said that Filipino-Canadians are among the largest visitor groups to the Philippines.

“In Toronto alone, there is a community of about 250,000 Filipino-Canadians,” Cruz began. “Of that number, some 120,000 balikbayans visited the Philippines in 2011. Moreover, for the first eight months of 2012, the number of returning Filipinos already reached 81,093, which will surely shoot up for the holidays.

“As our president Ramon Ang said in his speech at the send off, this non-stop flight is PAL’s response to the clamor of the Filipinos this side of the world. And like he said, ‘we heard them loud and clear.’”

Home sooner
The main attraction of PAL’s newest international flight is that it cuts down what is almost a full day of travel from Toronto to Manila to just 15 hours. Moreover, the service does away with connecting flights; there is a just a quick stopover in Vancouver for refueling, with no need for passengers to deplane.

“The Manila-Toronto flight goes from point to point, but because of headwinds, there has to be refueling in Vancouver for Toronto-Manila,” Cruz told The Sunday Times Magazine.

Nonetheless, balikbayans from Canada still get home sooner, and as the PAL executive likes to believe, they are home the moment they board the plane.

“When they step into the plane, they can immediately speak in Filipino,” Cruz continued. “There’s no need for them to stop over in a foreign country where they don’t even know the language.”

The famed Filipino hospitality is also very much alive in all of PAL’s aircrafts with a mix of newly trained and veteran flight attendants. And even before landing in Manila, passengers can already enjoy comfort foods like adobo, beef tapa and manok sa tanglad, as designed by the likes of top Filipino chef Fernando Aracama.

Finally, to round up the very Pinoy experience, Filipino blockbuster movies are available in the choices for in-flight entertainment to while away the hours to touchdown.

Two C’s
Besides the convenience of shorter travel time, PAL has also made sure that it serves its passengers in utmost comfort.

Fulfilling its promise to modernize one of Asia’s oldest commercial airlines, the eight-month-old San Miguel-Lucio Tan partnership has acquired a fleet of brand new, state-of-the-art aircrafts, like the Boeing 777-300ER, which carried the inaugural non-stop service to and from the famous Canadian city.

As described in the PAL website, “The Boeing 777-300ER is the world’s largest long-range twin-engine jetliner, powered by the largest and most powerful commercial jet engine. [It] provides exceptional fuel economy, efficiency, reliability and high levels of cabin comfort for its passengers, combined with unmatched levels of payload and range.”

For regular passengers, this aviation jargon simply means plush German Recaro seats, lots of legroom, and individual inflight entertainment systems, whether on Mabuhay Class (business) or Fiesta Class (economy).

“As outlined by our president there are three pillars of growth for our expansion: Fleet modernization, network expansion and service innovations,” Cruz enumerated.

He added that PAL currently owns three new Boeing 777s, and expects two more to be delivered by 2013, in its bid to launch more long haul flights in the coming months.

“The non-stop Toronto service is just a preview of more exciting things to come for PAL, which is first and foremost committed to serve Filipinos worldwide, and to bring the Philippines, a country of 90 million, closer to the rest of the world.”