PAL to fly to the ‘City of Light’
NewsTop Newsby Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo - December 3, 2015 0 730
By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo / Special to the BusinessMirror
PIONEERING flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) will be expanding its European network, adding Paris to its routes “by 2016-2017.”
The announcement of the new Manila-Paris route was made by David A. Lim, PAL senior vice president, Commercial Group, during the carrier’s recent party to celebrate the second anniversary of its London route.
Lim told the BusinessMirror that the Paris route will likely be served via the Middle East, using Dubai as a layover, “with an evening departure out of Manila.”
He said other key European destinations that the carrier is considering flying via the Middle East route are Amsterdam and Germany.
For his part, Ryan T. Uy, PAL vice president for sales, added that the Paris route will use the Airbus 330, which can carry 368 passengers. “This is temporary, until we get the A350.” The A350-900, which carries 325 passengers, will likely be used by PAL as a standard aircraft for its long-haul destinations.
In flying via Dubai for its Paris route, Uy acknowledged that PAL is basically following the template of the Middle Eastern carriers which offer European routes via their home hubs.
“We will bring the fight to them,” he stressed. Middle Eastern carriers are state-owned and receive subsidies for their operations. As such, they are able to offer cutthroat fares for their routes to the region, and then on to Europe. At present, PAL has code-sharing agreements with Middle Eastern carriers, such that when one books a PAL flight say, to Abu Dhabi, essentially it is an Etihad flight.
Uy says the target market for the Paris route will be overseas Filipinos and leisure travelers. There are about 100,000 Filipinos living and working in France.
“It would be nice if we could fly to Rome, because there is a large religious tourism market [from Manila], as well as a great number of OFWs. But we don’t have fifth freedom rights with Italy,” he said. The fifth freedom right allows an airline from one country to fly between two other countries. PAL had wanted to fly to Rome via the Middle East, as well. He underscored that the so-called golden triangle of European routes for any airline is London, Rome and Paris.
Meanwhile, the Department of Tourism (DOT) is strengthening its promotion of the Philippines to French travelers and recently sent a mission to encourage more visits.
Arturo Boncato Jr., DOT assistant secretary for Tourism Regulation, Coordination and Resource Generation, said, “We presented different tourism concepts to them such as emerging nature, eco-cultural, eco-adventure, as well as off-the-beaten path destinations in our 13 regions to tour operators, which included chief executives and product managers.”
The DOT organized its road show in Paris on November 10, and “we highlighted heritage sites as well like Banaue. We introduced Lake Sebu, South Cotobato as a community-based ecotourism site. We also shared One Visayas Dives featuring various dive spots in Western, Central and Eastern Visayas.”
He said there was also “serious interest in Sarangani for paragliding and paramotor, as well as surfing in Siargao.” These tour operators are selling Asia, and will include the Philippines in their packages.
Boncato said there were scheduled inspection trips this December to update the French tour operators of the country’s tourism products but these were suspended due to the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. He is hopeful this will be resumed early next year.
During the visit of France’s President François Hollande in Manila in February, he said the Philippines makes for a good tourism destination for the French people. “There are wonderful [sites] that we should protect here, that we should support here…so that there will be more French tourists coming to the Philippines,” he told a gathering of the Makati Business Club.
On the other hand, he said, there were not enough Filipino leisure travelers to France.
Visitor arrivals from France grew almost 17 percent to 30,000 from January to September 2015. Because of its consistent double-digit growth rates in arrivals, France is considered a new emerging visitor market.
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/pal-to-fly-to-the-city-of-light/