PAL among world's most improved airlines
FLAG carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) is recognized as being among the World's 10 Most Improved Airlines, which is one of the award categories of the prestigious Skytrax World Airline Awards.
According to the World Airline Awards website, the World's Most Improved Airline award "reflects an airline's quality improvement across the entire Airline Awards programme. This analyses an airline's change within the global rating, and their performance improvements in many of the award categories (eg. airport service, cabin staff, catering, IFE etc) to identify the most improved over the last 12 months."
London-based Skytrax is an international air transport rating organisation, established in 1989 while the World Airline Awards are the "most coveted quality accolades for the airline industry, often referred to as 'the Oscars of the aviation industry', and are a global benchmark of airline excellence."
In the recent awarding, Saudi Arabia's Saudi Arabian Airlines bagged the award as the most improved airline, besting nine other airlines, including PAL.
Together with PAL, Spain's flag carrier Iberia; Hainan Airlines, a fivestar airline in China; European low-cost carrier Ryanair; Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopia's flag carrier; Fiji Airways, Fiji's flag carrier; Germany's Lufthansa, one of the world's largest airline; China Airlines, Taiwan's flag carrier; and Hong Kong Airlines, were also recognized as among the World's Most Improved Airlines.
PAL's ranking in The World's Top 100 Airlines 2017 has also improved as the airline jumped to the 67th spot this year from 83 in the 2016 rankings.
The flag carrier is eyeing to become a five-star airline by 2020 through expanding its network, acquiring new fleet, and service innovations.
Recently, the airline has started to refurbish its eight Airbus A330-300s from a mono-class 414-seater aircraft to a tri-class 309-seater with new Business, Premium Economy, and Economy seats.
“In Philippine Airlines, we aim to please. This inspired us to go through the process of providing our passengers a reconfigured aircraft with meticulous seat and IFE selection. As we journey on to becoming a 5-star, world–class, full service carrier with a heart, we devote our efforts towards meeting customer needs," PAL President and Chief Operating Officer Jaime J. Bautista said in a statement.
The airline has selected the Thompson Vantage XL brand for its 18 business class seats with a legroom of 44 inches, width of 23 to 24 inches and a full-flat recline with a bed length of 78 inches. PAL Business class is in a 1-2-1 configuration offering an ll-aisle access for its business class passengers.
Business Class seats are also installed with Pneumatic Comfort System (PCS), which allows the passenger to adjust seat firmness according to preference, complimented with the massage function. The flag carrier is the first Asian carrier to offer the PCS.
"The Zodiac 5810 brand was selected for the 24 premium economy class seats with a legroom of 38 inches, width of 19 inches and a recline of 8 inches, while the Economy Zodiac brand was chosen for the 267 economy seats with a legroom of 32 inches, width of 17 inches and recline of 6 inches," PAL said in a statement.
Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports and in-seat power supplies are also installed in Premium Economy and Economy seats.
"Rave's Audio-video– on–demand (Avod) inseat system will give passengers access to a wide selection of media content via touch screen monitors, measuring 18.5 inches in Business, 13.3 inches in Premium Economy and 10.1 inches on economy," PAL said.
The airline has rolled out the first newly refurbished A330-300 on June 13 and will be utilized for flights between Manila and Honolulu, Hawaii starting this month. Meanwhile, the other A330 triclass planes will be used for flights between Manila and Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore, Haneda, Narita, and Osaka.
The airlinie is also set to acquire six Airbus A350900 in a bid to further expand its routes.