Lower PAL Revenues

Manila Standard Today
December 19, 2011
By Jeremiah F. de Guzman

Philippine Airlines said revenues will likely be lower in the October-to-December period as a result of the labor strike staged by ground employees in September.

"Because of the strike, our third quarter performance will be affected in terms of revenues," PAL president Jaime Bautista said in an interview Friday.

He said operations were trimmed down in the middle of September as a result of lower employees serving PAL's thousands of passengers every day.

"There was even a time that our flights were down 20 flights a day," Bautista said.

But he said the number of flights were now averaging 150 flights a day due to a surge in passengers for the holiday season.

Bautista said the seasonally high load factor expected for November and December failed to offset the reduction in number of flights in October and early November.

"But we are now back to normal," he said.

PAL's international operations account for 70 percent of the airline's passenger revenue.