‘… I am a proud Mabuhay Miles member happy to see PAL flying high again — and hoping it can resume its interrupted journey to being one of the better airlines in the region.’
PHILIPPINE Airlines, also known as PAL, formerly known as “Plane Always Late,” has been wowing me lately.
It seems PAL, post COVID and post Chapter 11, is shedding many of what I count as pet peeves when it comes to air travel.
First, of course, is the reliability of the schedule. For a very long time this was PAL’s weakest link. That’s why the nickname was coined. But delays have many causes — from slow ground handling to traffic congestion to disappearing passengers at boarding time and all. There also could be maintenance issues and when an airline does not have spare planes, when one conks out, the whole chain of flights is affected.
I am not saying that delays no longer happen (or flight cancellations, for that matter) but at least in my experience of late PAL has been close to 99% on time departures and arrivals, sometimes early arrivals, in fact, which can lead to other problems like occupied bays/gates. But heck, I’d rather be inside the plane on the tarmac waiting for another aircraft to vacate the bay, rather than be sitting in some airport waiting lounge wondering if the plane would ever arrive.
Second — a minor one for most people, I am sure — it seems to me that PAL pilots have taken a crash course in communications and now speak more clearly to their passengers. For so many times I’ve struggled to understand captains who mumble and whisper at the same time, making whatever they were saying totally unintelligible to their passengers. I’ve always contrasted PAL pilots to the Northwest captains of old who always started with a clear “Good morning (or evening) folks…” immediately putting their passengers at ease. No mumbling or whispering into the microphones for these guys.
PAL captains — and first officers — seem to have learned how to communicate properly.
Getting planes offloaded as quickly and efficiently as possible has also improved tremendously. This means a faster turnaround of aircraft, less fuel wasted, and passengers are quickly on their way to do their thing upon arrival. It used to be (in my experience, at least) that it would take ages before an aircraft was attached to an air bridge or a remote parking staircase and the bus would be around for the new arrivals.
PAL is still spotty with priority baggage handling. Fifty per cent of the time, it seems that the priority tag means nothing, perhaps because the baggage handlers offload whatever baggage is most convenient to offload.
I still am disappointed that in regional flights PAL uses the single aisle A320-321 planes which have less capacity than the twin aisle aircraft used by Thai or Singapore, to give two examples. Makes me suspect that using smaller planes affects the seat pricing and, of course, the Thai and Singapore planes have real business class accommodations for those who are willing to pay the price. But then a biz class seat on PAL is priced almost the same and sometimes even more than one on Thai or Singapore — so except for mileage accrual reasons why pay the same price for a less comfortable (luxurious?) seat?
Overall, however, I am a proud Mabuhay Miles member happy to see PAL flying high again — and hoping it can resume its interrupted journey to being one of the better airlines in the region.
