Philippine Airlines Permanently Retires Classic Airbus A330 Fleet

The Boeing 747-400 was not the only aircraft to be retired permanently from the Philippine Airlines fleet this week. The Philippine flag carrier finalised the retirement of its classic Airbus A330 fleet on September 2 with the retirement of the aircraft registered, RP-C3337, which was ferried to Clark Airport.

The short retirement flight lasted for 23 minutes, departing Manila at 3:26 pm and landing in Clark at 3:49 pm (all times Philippine Standard Time) according to Flightradar24.  Prior to this, RP-C3337's last commercial flights happened on August 31.  It operated flight PR468, which flies from Manila to Seoul (Incheon), as well as the return flight PR469.

Copyright Photo: Angelo Agcamaran/PPSG
The first of the classic Airbus A330 aircraft joined the Philippine Airlines fleet in June 1997.  PAL had a total of eight of them. The last aircraft in the classic A330 fleet to be retired, RP-C3337, originally joined the fleet in 1998 as F-OHZS. All of the aircraft were configured with 42 seats in Mabuhay (Business) Class and 260 seats in Economy Class.

Mabuhay (Business) Class on board PAL's Classic Airbus A330
Image by hybridace101
Mabuhay (Business) Class on board PAL's Classic Airbus A330
Image by hybridace101
The seating configuration was 2-2-2 in Mabuhay Class, and the standard Airbus configuration of 2-4-2 for Economy Class. In-flight entertainment on-board this aircraft included personal rolling audio and video for Mabuhay Class passengers, and main screen video and rolling audio for Economy class.

Economy Class on board PAL's Classic Airbus A330
Image by hybridace101
Economy Class on board PAL's Classic Airbus A330
Image by hybridace101
During its tenure in the Philippine Airlines fleet, the classic A330 served a number of destinations including Cebu, Davao, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Nagoya, Sydney, and Melbourne, while even reaching as far as Honolulu and Riyadh. 

MODERN AIRBUS A330 AIRCRAFT TAKING OVER

Although the classic A330 variant may be retiring from the Philippine Airlines fleet, the Airbus A330 aircraft family is not leaving the fleet completely. In fact, Philippine Airlines ordered 20 modern versions of these aircraft in 2012 as part of PAL's massive re-fleeting program, designed to enable Asia's first airline to operate one of Asia's youngest fleets. However, the order was later reduced to 15 aircraft, allegedly due to issues with obtaining overflight rights from Russia, preventing the fleet from reaching Europe non-stop from Manila.  

The newer A330 aircraft is considerably different from the classic A330 aircraft that just left in the fleet. The newer aircraft comes in two variants: a high density all-economy class aircraft featuring a premium economy and regular economy cabin, and a tri-class variant featuring business class, premium economy, and economy class.

The premium economy section is a new feature of PAL's new A330 fleet, boasting more legroom than regular economy. Unlike its predecessor, which seated eight across, all of the economy class seats in the new aircraft are configured with nine seats across in a 3-3-3 configuration.

The classic A330 fleet seated a maximum of 302 passengers in business and economy class, while the new aircraft now seats up to 414 passengers in the premium and regular economy configuration.  

Premium Economy Class on board PAL's New Airbus A330
Copyright Photo: Lloyd Lostboy/PPSG
Once deliveries are complete, Philippine Airlines will have seven new A330 aircraft that will feature the new business class product. On this variant of the A330, the aircraft is configured with 18 business class seats, 27 premium economy class seats and 323 economy class seats for a total of 368 passengers.

Business Class on board PAL's New Airbus A330
Copyright Photo: Lloyd Lostboy/PPSG
In-flight entertainment on the new A330 fleet is provided through the use of PAL's inAir wireless connectivity service, rather than conventional built-in seat back television screens or overhead monitors. Passengers need to bring their own wireless device and download the dedicated app, or rent an iPad (for an additional fee in regular economy) to access PAL's in-flight entertainment collection. WiFi is also available for an added fee.

Like its predecessor, the new A330 aircraft will continue to serve a variety of destinations in the Philippine Airlines network including most destinations in the Middle East, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Hawaii in the near future.  This newer variant of the A330 can supposedly fly as far as 5,950 miles (5,170 nautical miles) between two places.

28 comments:

  1. The Rolls Royce engines are probably the most noticeable when looking from outside.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well now in 2023 they got IFE since 2017 and the cabin has been majorly upgraded

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  2. Philippine Airlines should provide mainscreen television if they cannot afford personal IFEs on each seats.

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    Replies
    1. I agree even for just atleast teh airshow indicating exact location etc..

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    2. Personal IFEs purchasing is not a joke. It should be bought with high price on each.

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  3. If they cant provide IFE to passengers then they should provide free WIFI to all passenger. If not, then they should be call no frill bidget airline not legacy or premium airlines.

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    Replies
    1. Most legacy carriers charge for the use of WiFi. In fact SIA is stingier as it charges US$25 for just a mere 30MB of data.

      Delete
  4. norwegian has free wifi.. why does premium carriers charge alot? even emirates offers cheap rates

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    Replies
    1. Norwegian has free wifi but turtle slooooooow....the plane almost landed but still you cant get in on your facebook.

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    2. i have used norwegian many times and its not that slow.. have no problem skyping or surfing the web. atleast its free and Norwegian is a lowcost airline.

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    3. I agree, Norwegian wifi is quite good - a lot better than wifi in Dutch trains for example.

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  5. Just paint pal express instead of philippines to avoid confusion among the passengers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right.
      PAL express for PAL express
      Philippines for Philippine Airlines

      Delete
  6. I've seen that LT group has purchased the 49% stake at PAL. I'm expecting some article here ahead of the broadsheets.

    I hope PAL will get an A380! #wishfulthinking

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    Replies
    1. or additional 777 and maybe 787 haha

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    2. If PAL had an A380 it would probably have 11 across 3-5-3 seating in which case there would be no difference in passenger discomfort...

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  7. Do not confuse knowledgeable airline passengers of PAL's retired Airbus A300-400 old fleet (circa 1972) versus Airbus A330-600 (circa 2000). It is really high time for PAL to retire those tired A300's as all other carriers (except some of airlines in Africa and South America?) have done recently.

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  8. Yes, you are right. They are called A-300.
    What we have now is called A-330.
    Google PAL Wiki Free Encyclopedia so you will believe it.

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  9. And where did you get your term "Classic A330s?" You cannot even find that from Airbus Wiki Encyclopedia!

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  10. I wonder why the seats are no longer blue.

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  11. The 9-across (3 - 3 - 3) Economy seating is the best reason never to fly on a new PAL A330. On a short domestic flight such as General Santos > Manila the seats are awful; literally shoulder pressing against shoulder, on longer flights such as Tokyo it's hell.
    Even the new A330 Mabuhay seats are bad for a business class seat; they are narrow, overlook the passenger in the next seat (because of their inward herringbone layout).
    Its sad that PAL under San Miguel chose such awful seating layout.
    Even Cebu Pacific has better seating.

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  12. RP-C3337 was the same a330 that took me to manila for the first time back in 2012 ! in my opinion the class 330 have a better seats compare to newer 330 hopefully do that will soon change !

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