Philippine Air resumes
international flights

Associated Press

MANILA -- Philippine Airlines today resumed international flights after more than a month with a party for passengers leaving on its first overseas flight, bound for Los Angeles.

No isle flights yet Philippine Airlines dropped its three weekly Manila-Honolulu flights in June after its pilots went on strike. The airline has so far not announced any plans to resume that service. .

Colorful buntings, Philippine cuisine and a live band in the departure area awaited more than 200 passengers flying on PAL flight PR102, company officials said.

"This feels like a rebirth. We felt so bad before and now we're happy that we're back," said Maria Lourdes Afzelius, PAL manager for special services.

PAL shut down its operations on Sept. 23 after a union representing ground personnel turned down a management-proposed recovery plan that included a 10-year suspension of collective bargaining in exchange for 20 percent ownership of the airline.

Workers agreed to accept the plan nearly two weeks after the shutdown.

The airline resumed domestic flights on Oct. 7. Today it began three weekly flights between Manila and Los Angeles, with stopovers in San Francisco. The two U.S. destinations will be served with separate flights from Manila starting Nov. 11.

PAL, Asia's oldest airline, said it plans to gradually expand its international operations to cash in on an expected influx of Filipino overseas workers coming home for the Christmas holidays.

It plans to resume flights on Dec. 1 to the Saudi Arabian cities of Dhahran and Riyadh, with service three times a week. Both cities have large numbers of Filipino construction workers and housemaids.

Asian flights will resume Nov. 11, including daily flights to Tokyo and 14 flights a week to Hong Kong, the airline said. Service to Singapore, Taipei, Fukuoka and Osaka will begin later in November.

PAL initially planned to use Airbus A340-300 planes on the U.S. flights but said today it decided to use a bigger Boeing 747-400 for the flight to Los Angeles because of an unexpected surge in demand for seats. Two of PAL's four Boeing 747-400 planes were seized earlier by authorities in Hong Kong and Los Angeles at the request of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, which financed them. Manila's Securities and Exchange Commission has since asked the Ex-Im Bank to return the planes.