Philippine Airlines asked the Civil Aeronautics Board for more flight frequencies between the Philippines and South Korea amid strong travel demand between the two countries.
The flag carrier controlled by tycoon Lucio Tan seeks an additional 1,730 weekly seats from January until Feb. 18 and another 1,270 weekly seats from Feb. 19 onwards.
PAL’s request for additional seat entitlements to Korea was in accordance with the existing air services agreement between the governments of the Philippines and Korea.
The Philippine air panel and its counterpart in South Korea expanded their ASA in December 2015,
adding 3,000 seat entitlements per week from the existing 28,500 seat entitlements a week.
Data from the Tourism Department showed Korea was the biggest visitor-general market with 1.091 million arrivals in January to September last year.
South Korea was also the top spending market with estimated receipts of P5.06 billion in September alone.
PAL launched a daily flight from Clark to Incheon on Jan. 1, allowing passengers from Central and Northern Luzon to fly to South Korea without passing through Manila.
Travelers from Incheon, upon arriving at Clark, can visit interesting attractions in Central and Northern Luzon, or connect on PAL’s direct flight to Caticlan, gateway to Boracay.
PAL can also take Incheon visitors from Caticlan direct to Cebu, host to a variety of world-class tourist spots and the jump off point to other international PAL destinations such as Los Angeles, Singapore, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and also back to Incheon.
PAL posted a comprehensive income of P2.96 billion in the nine-month period, lower by 54.8 percent than the previous year’s total comprehensive income of P6.55 billion.
Revenues in January to September hit P85.35 billion, up by 3.5 percent from last year’s P82.48 billion.