Philippine Airlines to fly to Beijing starting November - PAL president
MANILA (XFNews) - Philippine Airlines (PAL) is to start flights to Beijing in November, its president and chief operating officer Jaime Bautista said.
The flag carrier, which regularly flies to Xiamen and Shanghai, plans to lease three Airbus 320s to service the new destination three times a week, Bautista added.
PAL currently flies to 18 domestic and 25 international destinations and operates a fleet of 30 aircraft.
Meanwhile, Bautista said PAL expects the airline's net profit this year to stay flat from last year's 1.2 bln pesos, with higher fuel costs likely to offset higher revenues from increasing destinations and passenger volume.
"Initially we were projecting our net income to be higher than last year. But with the current increase in fuel cost, we expect to maintain our last year's performance," Bautista said during PAL's annual stockholders meeting this afternoon.
During the meeting, PAL stockholders elected two sons of majority shareholder Lucio Tan to the flag carrier's board. They are Tanduay Distillers Inc chief executive officer Lucio Tan Jr and Asia Brewery Inc chief operating officer Michael Tan.