Philippine Airlines has launched nonstop service between Manila and New York City aboard its new Airbus A350-900 jetliner.
The flag carrier of the Philippines, more commonly known as PAL, will serve New York JFK five times weekly. With the inauguration of this route, PAL joins the Top-10 Club of world’s longest flights. At 8,520 miles, this becomes the world’s eighth longest flight.
Up until this week, Philippines has been operated a 777-300 to New York with a ground stop in Vancouver. The new nonstop service to New York marks the end of the New York to Vancouver route, which was also bookable as a stand-alone Fifth Freedom flight.
PAL’s new flight will operate according the following schedule:
- PR126 Manila MNL – New York JFK (21:00-23:15)
- PR127 New York JFK – Manila MNL (01:45-07:15+1)
Flights will depart Manila on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Starting on December 6th, a fifth weekly flight on Wednesdays will commence.
The A350-900 will seat 295 passengers in the following configuration:
- 30 Business Class
- 24 Economy Plus
- 241 Economy Class
Business class will featured staggered lie-flat seating similar to what I reviewed on SAS last year (Thompson Vantage XL seat).
CONCLUSION
I’ve never flown on PAL and look forward to reviewing the new longhaul route between Manila and New York.
Have you flown PAL recently?
Philippine Airlines used to be a mess. They are trying to improve but lets see.
If you end up in Manila why not go to one of the islands for a little adventure vacation. El Nido and Bohol are nice.
Great; now they need to sort out some decent points crediting arrangements and they’ll be a good choice. It’s a far better airline than many SEA competitors, including Thai and Garuda ( despite the over the top blogger BS /hoopla in respect of the latter).
This could be useful for my NY-Singapore flights as PAL often has reasonable business class fares. What’s their lounge situation like in MNL? I thought they were building a new flagship.
I am booked on that flight tomorrow 145am from jfk buss class