Philippine Airlines said it is in talks with Boeing Commercial Airplanes for possible acquisition of the latest series of the long-range, wide-body, twin-engine Boeing 777 family.
“We don’t have plans yet [to buy Boeing 777X], but we are in discussion. Also, Boeing wants to sell the airplane,” PAL president and chief operating officer Jaime Bautista said.
“They are in discussion with us, informing us the features of the airplane to get us interested to replace the old Boeing 777,” Bautista said.
PAL has 10 Boeing 777 on its fleet including two aircraft that were acquired in 2008.
“So, by 2020 these two Boeing 777 will be a 12-year-old airplane. Boeing wants us to replace these planes with Boeing 777X,” Bautista said.
The 777X features new GE9X engines, new composite wings with folding wingtips, greater cabin width and seating capacity and technologies from the Boeing 787.
PAL uses Boeing 777 in its long-haul destinations.
PAL’s parent firm, PAL Holdings Inc., incurred a comprehensive loss of $65.78 million in 2018, down from the $129-million loss in 2017.
Revenues went up to $2.92 billion last year from $2.62 billion in 2017 while expenses increased to $3.06 billion from $2.76 billion.
ANA Holdings Inc., the parent company of ANA, earlier acquired 9.5-percent shares in PAL Holdings for $95 million.
ANA HD acquired the shares from Trustmark Holdings Corp. which is owned by the family of billionaire Lucio Tan and is the largest shareholder of PAL Holdings.
This will increase foreign ownership in the company from 8.77 percent to 18.27 percent.
