Philippine Airlines Restarts Flights To China

Credit: Joe Pries

Philippine Airlines (PAL) has resumed service to China with flights to two cities from Manila (MNL).

PAL in mid-January opened 1X-weekly service from MNL to both Guangzhou (CAN) and Xiamen (XMN). Both routes are being operated with Airbus A330-300 aircraft. The CAN service operates on Saturdays only, while the XMN flights are operated on Fridays only.

“We are gearing up for the resumption of regular passenger flights to mainland China, helping pave the way for the full restoration of our pre-pandemic flight frequencies,” PAL VP of network planning Christoph Gaertner said in a statement.

VP of sales Bud Britanica added: “Philippine Airlines is continuously working towards flying back to more cities in China, with our goal of operating the largest network of flights between the Philippines and multiple cities in mainland China.”

In addition to CAL and XMN, PAL before the COVID-19 pandemic served the Chinese cities Beijing (PEK), Quanzhou (JJN) and Shanghai (PVG). Whereas now the airline is operating 2X-weekly flights to China, before the pandemic it flew 34X-weekly between the Philippines and China.

“For its calibrated step-by-step resumption of flights to the Chinese mainland, PAL is working closely with Chinese and Philippine health and aviation authorities to ensure the highest level of health safety protections for travelers,” PAL noted.

Aaron Karp

Aaron Karp is a Contributing Editor to the Aviation Week Network.