Manila Standard Today
May 11, 2012
by Jenniffer B. Austria
Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. is confident Philippine Airlines will return to profitability one year after acquiring a 49-percent interest and taking over management control over the country’s national flag carrier.
San Miguel president and chief operating officer Ramon Ang said in an interview at the sidelines of the annual stockholders’ meeting of Ginebra San Miguel Inc. that the airline planned to reduce cost by increasing the utilization of aircraft from 10 hours to 16 hours a day and improving the system for selling tickets to get better yield and pricing.
“PAL will make turnaround a year from the time we invested in the company. We are confident that PAL will make a turnaround,” Ang said.
He said PAL would also fly non-stop to New York within the next three months, Toronto within the year and Europe within a one-year period.
Ang said the airline would utilize two Boeing 777-300 ERs to be delivered this year for the flight to New York and Toronto. Two more Boeing 777-300 ERs are scheduled for delivery by 2013.
PAL is launching the non-stop flights amid the decision of US authorities to strip the Philippines of its Category 1 status. Ang expressed hope that the country’s problems with US and EU aviation authorities would be resolved soon to enable the carrier to fly European destinations like London, Paris, Frankfurt and Rome.
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