Philippine Airlines has programmed $650 million worth of capital expenditures this year to fund the acquisition of new aircraft.
PAL president and chief operating officer Jaime Bautista said over the weekend the airline was acquiring two Airbus 350, two A321 Neo and two Q400 aircraft this year.
He said these aircraft would be deployed to long-haul and domestic flights.
PAL flies to 43 international and 35 domestic destinations using 95 aircraft, one of the youngest fleets in the industry with an average age of just five years.
ANA HD, the Japanese parent company of All Nippon Airways, earlier invested $95 million for a 9.5-percent stake in PAL parent PAL Holdings Inc.
ANA HD acquired the shares from Trustmark Holdings Corp., which is owned by the family of billionaire Lucio Tan and the largest shareholder of PAL Holdings.
The investment will increase foreign ownership in the company from 8.77 percent to 18.27 percent.
Earlier, PAL Holdings posted a net loss of P3.29 billion in the January-to-September period last year from P2.31 billion year-on-year.
Total revenues in the nine-month period reached P112.07 billion, up 16 percent from P96.58 billion on year.
Expenses increased 17 percent to P115.30 billion last year from P98.56 billion in 2017, led by higher jet fuel prices, aircraft lease charges and flight frequencies.
Flying operations expenses increased 26.9 percent to P63.26 billion last year from P49.84 billion a year ago.
The company said jet fuel expenses climbed 36.1 percent in the nine-month period as the average price per barrel of aviation fuel soared from $73.92 in 2017 to $92.80 in 2018.
The airline earlier announced it was expanding operations in Asia by launching new routes to Hanoi (Vietnam), Phnom Penh (Cambodia) and New Delhi (India) from its Manila hub.
The latest expansion by PAL creates the first direct air link between the Philippines and the capital of Cambodia, expands PAL’s existing Vietnam network and re-establishes a historic link to India with immense potential for tourism development.
“Philippine Airlines’ strategic vision is to make the Philippines a true gateway to Asia. We are the Southeast Asian airline with the biggest and most extensive network of direct flights to the US and Canada, and thus we can be the leader in carrying North American travelers to India, Cambodia and Vietnam via our Manila hub,” Bautista said.