BusinessMirror
CITING low load factor, Philippine Airlines (PAL) will temporarily suspend flights to and from Brisbane effective end of this month.
PAL president Jaime Bautista said in a phone interview yesterday that its Brisbane route, which reopened in March this year, was deemed not profitable. ?“We will continue to lose money if we don’t’ realign our Australian flights,” he said.
However, PAL will schedule Brisbane flights in December. “We will resume in December because it is a peak season. After that we will assess the market if there is a need to operate our Brisbane route even during lean months,” added Bautista.
In a statement, PAL said its five times a week flights to Melbourne will be adjusted to thrice weekly, while flights to Sydney—one of PAL’s most popular Australian destinations—remains unaffected with five times weekly services.
It added that market conditions and the onset of the lean season necessitated some changes in the number of destinations and frequency of flights the flag carrier mounts to Australia. Still. PAL said Australia remains an important market for the company.
In June, PAL said the load factor or the number of seats occupied during a flight for Sydney and Melbourne stood at about 80 percent to 85 percent and the Brisbane route accounted for about 70 percent PAL did not provide the current load factor for Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
PAL first flew to Brisbane on June 5, 1985.? In succeeding years, the city formed a key part, along with Sydney and Melbourne, of the airline’s multi-legged operation to Australia. But commercial and operational difficulties spawned by the Asian financial crisis of 1997 forced the flag carrier to shut down its Australian services on June 5, 1998.
Passengers to be affected by the flight realignments shall be properly notified by PAL’s contact center and advised on the best options to proceed to their respective destinations.
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