Philippine airlines

Has anyone flown Philippine Airlines?
Good? Awful?

No worse than any of the other 2nd rate airlines. I actually had one flight on a fairly new plane that was reasonable bar the food.

ugh… i’m flying with them all the way to vancouver this august…

Yeah, but thats not my fault.

Seriously if they are flying that far one would assume they will put on a semi decent aircraft.

Pack an inflatable neck pillow and some loud earphones and you should be fine.

Don’t forget to sign up for your Mabuhay Miles…:slight_smile:

[quote=“Edgar Allen”]Yeah, but thats not my fault.

Seriously if they are flying that far one would assume they will put on a semi decent aircraft.[/quote]

Before they went bust for a while a number of years ago I flew with them to London. An interesting itinerary on a rusty old 747. (Rust was around the door, shocked me how they could get an aluminium plane to rust, but anyway…)

Taipei-Manila-Bangkok-Karachi-Frankfurt-London. Yes, it was cheap.

Broke down in Bangkok for 19 hours (of course 20 hours and I would have got some insurance compo!). They were awful. Kept us on the plane for 3 hours with no a/c repeatedly lying to us about what was going on. Wouldn’t let us out of the airport. Eventually, at about 1am they took us to a hotel. They woke us up at 7am to tell us the plane would be leaving at noon. Thanks guys. I didn’t need that sleep anyway.

All the same, I’d rather fly them than China Scarelines, who are overdue their regular major crash.

I did many years ago … Sanxia (Taiwan) - Herentals (Belgium) 32 Hours … Taipei-Manila (5 hours stopover) - Bangkok - Dubai - Zurich - Frankfurt (4 hours breakdown stop … they lost a part of the plane or something) including breakfast - Paris

But good service … got to take like 35 kg o carry-on luggage and 30 kilo check-in … food was, well, ok … flight attendants were good, helpfull and BTW on landing they will desinfect the whole plane inside … spray for bugs before they open the doors … :laughing:

And cheap too, 17,000 NT$ return Europe … but than at the hight of the sars episode I flew Cathay for 17,800 NT$ return from Taipei to Amsterdam … return I was lucky … business class until HK, stretch out seat/bed, caviar, fois gras, champagne …

The FAs were fine, and I would fly them again. What amused me were the fat businessmen whining about how they had to be in London for a meeting blah blah and harassing the staff. Whothey tryin’ to kid? If it’s that urgent why don’t you fly on bleeding Cathay or BA you cheapskates? Now sit down and shut up.

You pays your money. One year I gave CX over NT$70k to get back home for Christmas. At the time it was nearly £2,000. Economy. Arrived in London exactly on time. Very hard to get a drink at Heathrow at 5:55am, IIRC. Then getting full again on the Shuttle to Belfast. I hate flying now though…

Thanks for all the replies.

I had orginally booked a ticket on Can-I-Rip-You-off Pacific, but they had some outrageous fuel tax that tacked on an additional 7,000NT to my ticket, making it just over 40,000NT roundtrip. This was through Interlink btw.

Then I made a list of all the recommended travel agents, minus interlink, and got a good deal with Philippine Airlines.
30,300NT rountrip, incliding tax. Way to go Champion! The only downside is the 5 hour stop in Manilla and leaving YVR at 11:40 pm basically bringing me back to Taipei 2 days after departure.

I almost booked a flight with Korean Air but that required staying the night in Seoul.

Sigh… I remember being able to fly home for just over 22,000NT round-trip… that was also when the CDN dollar was sitting at around 22…

I guess I posted this question cause I’ve never heard of Philippine Airlines… whether they have good service, a good safety record and whatnot. I usually fly with Cathay out of Taiwan.

Their safety record is good, at least it was when I checked. I flew with them back in September. I actually wound up flying their business class as their economy was booked and China Airline’s prices were unreasonably high; Phillipine Air’s business class wasn’t much mre than China Airline’s economy at the time. If I remember the route correctly, they fly you to Manila from TPE on an airbus 320 or or Boeing twin engine. The flight from Manila was on what appeared to be a fairly new Airbus a340. Not a bad plane. I think they’ll be ok for your flight home.

It sounds like they’ve improved a lot. I flew with them to YVR 10 years ago, and it was the scariest flight I’ve ever had. Various electrical systems began shorting out shortly after takeoff including the intercom system and various lights. When we landed in Vancouver, the plane stopped dead in the middle of the runway. No power, lights, ac, nothing. I could hear the flight attendants at the back of the plane singing “We’ve got no power, we’ve got no power…” and doing a little dance. For whatever reason, no one was able to move or tow the plane, and we actually blocked the runway for an hour while they tried to get it to move.

Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the same as a typical Air Canada plane these days, isn’t it?

I have flown with them twice. I thought they were great. NO problems as far as i was concerned.