Philippine Airlines Adjusts Japan Schedules

Philippine Airlines will be making adjustments to more of its Japan bound flights including services to Tokyo Narita and Osaka Kansai. The airline is  planning to cut back its frequencies to Osaka after recently announcing that it would cut back service to Tokyo Haneda.

Copyright Photo: Lester Tangco/PPSG
Beginning on July 6, Philippine Airlines will adjust the schedule of 1 of 3 daily flights between Manila and Tokyo Narita. Flight PR430 will have its departure time moved ahead by four hours. Under the new schedule, the flight will depart Manila at 10:00am and arrive at Tokyo Narita at 3:25pm. The return flight, PR429, will depart Narita at 4:25pm and arrive back in Manila at 7:55pm. This flight will be operated by an Airbus A321 aircraft. 

Effective on June 10, Philippine Airlines will cut its second daily flight to Osaka leaving a single flight operated by an A330 aircraft. The airline had just announced in February that it would launch a second daily flight to Osaka at the end of March. However, the airline has now cancelled the second daily flight after only just two months of operation. 

Last month, Philippine Airlines announced that it would also cut back flights to Tokyo Haneda airport. The airline announced in January that it would launch two daily flights between Manila and Tokyo Haneda on March 30. But less than six weeks after Philippine Airlines launched the twice daily flights, the carrier announced that it would be cutting the route back to just one daily flight on May 7. 

Although no official decision was given for the route cutbacks, it is believed that it could be due to over saturation in the Philippines-Japan market with Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines, and All Nippon Airways adding extra capacity simultaneously between the two countries at the beginning of this year. 

Philippine Airlines currently holds all fourteen weekly flight allocations between Manila and Haneda Airport. AirAsia Zest has revealed that it would like to acquire at least 25 percent of those allocations as the budget carrier plans to enter the Japan market in October of this year. AirAsia Zest is initially planning service from Manila to Tokyo Narita, Tokyo Haneda, or Nagoya.

15 comments:

  1. I don't get what's the use of mounting an additional flight only to take it out after a few months? It like they didn't even study the viability of the route in meriting another flight, only to realize it after its been launched and now they are cutting it again.

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  2. Ingenious tactic. PR launched flights so they can justify monopolizing the limited entitlements. They lobbied hard to block Cebu Pac's entry into Haneda - only to cut the flights right after it started. Brilliant, really.

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  3. You're speculating. That's not the real story. PR did not block 5J from entering HND. Japan did not allow LCC to serve the route. They may fly to NRT but not HND because slots were limited there. Naturally, PR was the only Philippine carrier who can fly that route.

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    1. Wrong. Air Asia X is one of the many budget airlines that flies to HND.

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    2. The person at fault here is CAB Executive Director Carmelo Arcilla. He said the Japanese government “clearly indicated” that the Haneda market is for corporate and business travel, and not for leisure. He also said corporate or business travel requires amenities, facilities and connection of flights, adding that only PAL offers business class.

      But this is Arcilla's interpretation. This is not a law or policy imposed by Japanese authorities. All they simply stated was that Haneda is the preferred airport for business travellers. That does not imply that all business travellers fly in business class or that low cost carriers do not carry business passengers either. Therefore, Arcilla is wrong.

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  4. I read somewhere that Haneda requires that airline who uses the airport has to have a business class section as this airport is geared mostly to business travellers being located very nearer Tokyo central compared to Narita hence why businessmen prefer this airport. An LCC airline might be required to allocate business class seats if they wish to fly here.

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    1. Hong Kong Express flies there. There are budget, all economy. Air Asia X, although has a small premium cabin, is inarguably a budget airline. There also several budget domestic carriers.

      The business-only policy was years ago. It became more lenient now.

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    2. Even PAL must have been caught off guard a little bit. Although they bagged all the rights -- they had also applied for rights for PAL Express so clearly they were also unaware of this alleged policy.

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  5. Well, it means that their product is not very competitive. Hindi naman bobo ang mga tao. Bakit ka sasakay sa isang airline na parang low cost carrier na mahal ang pamasahe tapos walang personal TV, e di mag ANA ka na lang, bago pa ang eroplano at may personal TV. PAL really should rethink its business strategy. Not having personal TVs in their new planes is a bad idea. Uwi ako this October from Toronto but I will not be flying with them this time lik I did last December. I was happy with the 777 plane that they used to fly to Toronto. But since they are changing that plane to the old A340 that does not have personal TVs, I decided to go back to Cathay.

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  6. Good thing we decided to book CEB-HKG-YYZ thru CX instead of CEB-MNL-YYZ thru PAL for Sept 2014. Aside from the scrapping of the non-stop MNL-YYZ, they are downgrading their plane to A340 which is old. PAL should rethink their entire structure, starting with the removal of "bad" advisers for RSA.

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    1. Be quiet! Some of those "bad advisers" are trolling this website, and would jump on you on any hint of criticism ;)

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  7. I love using CX or other star alliance carriers. And i bet they are laughing at pal of there moves regarding airplanes to use, who would spend more than 500usd for a crappy old a340? I feel sorry to bc spenders who dont know what to expect... what happend to pals plan to make it a world class carrier? Most of their flight internationally are 60% full only

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    1. PAL should be leasing Boeing 777-300ER jets than A340s. I still don't understand why even got another A340 last April. I thought they wanted to save on fuel costs?

      PAL should get the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner to replace the A340. I hear that Boeing still has 4 of them that has not been taken up.

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  8. What i hate with travelling to Manila is holding around 30min before landing or 30min waiting in airplane before the clearance to takeoff.

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  9. It's just a matter of time before RSA will realize that PAL is a bad investment. Better focus on airport development instead if you can't beat 5J.

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