Philippine Airlines resumes KL flights after 7 years, sees strong demand

SEPANG: Philippine Airlines, which sees strong flight demand between Malaysia and The Philippines, has resumed its flights to Kuala Lumpur after a seven-year absence.

It will fly the Manila-Kuala Lumpur route four times weekly (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday), using the Airbus 319 which has a seating capacity of 134 passengers. The inaugural flight from Manila touched down at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) yesterday at noon.

“We hope that this renewed air service will result not only in increased exchanges in not only passenger traffic between our countries but also in economic and cultural terms, “ Philippine Airlines' external affairs assistant vice president Josen Perez de Tangle said.

“We have a big clientele in the leisure market especially tourists visiting the Philippines and vice versa. “There are overseas Filipino workers who work in Asia and budget travellers,” he added.

Josen Perez, who further added that he hopes there will be further growth and healthy passenger traffic load moving forward, is expecting a 30% increase in flight load before the end of 2013.

Tourism Malaysia Promotion Board's director of international promotion division Syed Yahya Syed Othman said at the joint press conference that tourist arrivals from Philippines was expected to see close to a 20% jump this year. “Last year we managed to get about 508,000 arrivals from Philippines and this year we believe we can get close to 600,000,” Syed Yahya said.

A Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad statement said options for the KL-Philippines flight route was now significantly increased and that passengersw now had access with Cebu Pacific or AirAsia Philippines from the Low Cost Carrier Terminal or Malaysia Airlines, Phlilippine Airlines or Philippine Airlines Express from the KLIA.

MAHB's senior general manager of operations Datuk Azmi Murad said the company may issue a statement on latest developments on the entire KLIA2 project as they happen. “We are planning for a launch at the end of June, but if there are any changes we will issue a statement. “The total completion to date is at around 80% (average),” he said.

-thestar online.