Philippine Airlines: Daily Flights to London Begin June 2016

Nearly three years after Philippine Airlines began flying non-stop to London's Heathrow airport, the national flag carrier has announced that it will begin operating daily flights in June of this year. Beginning on June 28, PAL will increase the number of weekly trips from four to seven flights. 

philippine airlines a340 london
Copyright Photo: Angelo Agcamaran/PPSG
Philippine Airlines began flying non-stop to London in November 2013 with five weekly flights. The route's performance struggled early on in the highly competitive air sector, resulting in several service adjustments as Philippine Airlines attempted to achieve profitability. A number of factors hampered the route's initial performance including longer flight times due to the inability to fly over Russia and inconvenient scheduling to support connecting traffic.

However, according to Philippine Airlines President Jaime Bautista, the route is finally winning over passengers. "The positive performance of our flights to and from London can be attributed to the direct service, competitive pricing, and the on-board offerings," said Bautista. "Having daily flights will provide passengers taking the Manila - London route the flexibility to choose the schedule most suitable to their travel plans. The direct service to London Heathrow makes the journey most convenient and relaxing."

On June 28, flight PR720 will depart Manila daily at 1:20pm and arrive in London at 9:00pm. The return service, flight PR721, will depart London daily at 10:50pm, and arrive back in Manila at 7:50pm. All flights will be operated by the Philippine Airlines A340-300 fleet. 

Philippine Airlines recently announced the acquisition of six Airbus A350-900 aircraft, which are expected to replace the A340 fleet and eventually operate European routes including flights to London. Philippine Airlines is presently considering the launch of a second destination in Europe by the end of 2016. However, it remains unclear what European city the Philippine carrier will fly to next.

13 comments:

  1. Much as I want to patronize PAL's business on this route, my getting older body cannot accept hardship traveling in an outdated A340 aircraft. Can you blame me for that? I am a Filipino citizen, by the way!

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    1. 5-tar Air can provide you new 777s and A380s on this route, check it, tiyong!

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    2. Qatar Airways fly Manila to Doha on 777 and Doha to London on A380. Enjoy, uncle! Kung diyan ka liligaya, sige...

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    3. I am young ofw but i still preffer to fly pal because i want to arrive as quick as possible.pal is sub par compare to qatar or emirates but this is my one reason why i always choose pal.london is less than 14 hours on pal while emirates or qatar will take me almost 24 hours journey and i dont like that.

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    4. 24 hours? Not true at all! If you choose the right flights with EK or QR or EY, then you only need 17-18 hours. And you save about 50% of the price.

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  2. I am glad that PAL has persevered and kept the London route alive and now plans to increase to daily flights. I think aside from the Filipino/British tourists/business people who patronize PAL, they were able to successfully organize the "kangaroo route" very well that helped sustain this flight and also grow various Australian destinations. Good work PAL!

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  3. you should put a flight TO/FROM USA to LHR too.

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    1. for example: LAX - LHR: 10h 30min, but LAX - MNL - LHR: 29h 10min excl. layover time in MNL. Hmmmm... ;) If the price would be much cheaper than cheap but very good 4 star airlines, so let's say cheaper than 800$ for e return ticket, then maybe some people would fly that way. However: Many people were laughing when EK started selling their tickets from East Asia to the western coast in the US via Dubai. But some people are taking this longer way, because of a cheap fare and good service.

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  4. Italy would be a great target for PAL. MNL-FCO-MXP would be the best next european route PAL can launch!

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  5. I'm getting sick of those ugly A340s. I became traumatized with the Thailand incident.

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    1. Well, an A340 doesn't need to be ugly, but at Philippine Airlines they are old and interior seems even older!

      And the incident which happened in Thailand was not a A340, but it was the fault of the captain! Similar thing happened to me already 2 times with two other airlines. Of course they let us going out to wait outside - because they were not allowed to turn on the engines.

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  6. It was really nice at the beginning, when PR flew with the 777 to LHR. But now with the 340, no TV in the seats, very small seats and high fare from LHR to MNL. The last 3 times I travelled, I counted the passengers - always between 70 and 100 inside the whole airplane. Well, no wonder. But if they would reduce the prices, then maybe people wouldn't expect so much. And I as a Premier Elite member, what do they offer for me? I never got any free upgrate, nor even a personally welcome greeting and initially drink - as the staff is doing it in many other airlines with their loyal members. But instead they are still offering that crazy destillied water called "Absolute Water", which harms the human body. How can an international airline serve destillied water??? Often complained, nothing has changed!

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  7. Do you get meals & complimentary drinks & snacks flying from Manila to London?

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