Philippine Airlines

Oct 10th Vancouver to Manila flight PR 117 A340. Oct 12th Manila to General Santos flight PR 454V A320. Their website needs a makeover as it has too many pages with jumbled information one needs to search out web check in instead of having it on the front page. It needs to add an APP to make it easier for the busy traveller to use his smart phone to check in not just to use it as a boarding ticket. The staff also needs to understand web check in as the three terminals I used (Vancouver Manila and General Santos) had web check in lines but were not used. In Vancouver I lined up in the web check in line only to be told to go to the long regular line. The A340 long haul aircraft needs to be outfitted with an entertainment system for every seat like most world class airlines. Their recently acquired 777's have it which makes the long flights over the pacific more tolerable. Staff are exemplary always showing the level of service which put North American carriers to shame. Overall I would give them 3 stars out of 5 easily able to go higher with a few touch ups in their online system and aircraft entertainment systems.

Flew SIN-MNL-SIN. SIN-MNL flight was a 777. New plane great service but I think the movies in the inflight entertainment were the same as last May's. The MNL-SIN flight was wan old plane that with an overhead TV screen.

I was rescheduled to an earlier flight which is PR880. I was surprised to experienced their new A321. Flight PR880 was on time departing 7.45pm from Cebu to Manila. The flight attendants are all up beat and friendly. The inflight snacks was a biscuit and peanuts only. The seat in economy was fine for a short trip. The seat reclines a little and the seat slides forward. What I liked is the attentiveness of the cabin crews. After 50 minutes in the air we landed smoothly and on-time.

KTM to BKK. It is good and like others mentioned here the plane was quite old and there's no inflight entertainment. The website must be upgraded as there is no way to book online. However its worth travelling.

MNL-BKK-MNL in business class. The business class lounge at the international PAL terminal has been totally refurbished compared to the one I saw in November 2012. Its modern clean comfortable the food and drinks selection is good. En route to Bangkok by coincidence we have been embarked into an A321 maiden flight. Being a 3.5 hrs trip and a day flight comfort is not as important as for the long haul ones. However the seating was narrow without any leg rest no power sockets and no inflight entertainment which is awkward for a brand new plane of latest generation. After we took off we have been given iPads which did the job with a wide selection of movies and inflight electronic entertainment. On the way back I have been boarded into an A340 former Iberia but the experience in this case was excellent compared to the outbound route. Lie flatbed powered seats inflight entertainment (although the selection was limited to just one movie) and good service onboard. Must throw a huge commend for the attendants fantastic attentive professional all of them. Concluding for mid-short flight the experience its ok. Considering that the airline came out from tough times in the recent past it is fair to say that they did a good recovery job but from a passenger point of view there is certainly room for improvement except for the cabin crew which clearly stand out compared to most other competitors even if big names.

Our plane was downgraded from a 747 to a A340. That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard of when travelling on a long-haul international flight. Why on earth would Philippine Airlines downgrade a plane that is travelling from Manila to SFO knowing that there are hundreds of passengers on this long-haul flight? The supposed reason from the supervisor was that the 747 was under maintenance and there wasn't a back-up plane for them to use. That is ridiculous that Philippine Airlines doesn't have a back-up 747 for a long-haul flight. Because of this we spent 2 hours waiting at the check-in counter until 3 seats became available for my party (and this was accomplished by compensating passengers willing to give up their seat). Once we were on our flight the flight attendants did not clean the bathrooms at all. When you have 260+ passengers on a plane using 6 bathrooms they need to get cleaned regularly. Additionally this downgraded plane did not provide personal entertainment systems. Having personal entertainment systems should be a requirement for a long haul international flight. The only good thing about this experience was how patient the check-in associate was with us and the fact that she was able to get 3 seats open for us.

MLA to DGTE in June. Flight ended up being cancelled after 7 hours of waiting due to various unrecognizable reasons. We were already taxiing to the runway when the pilot decided to cancel the flight. Came back this month (September) and bought again a return ticket for MLA-DGTE-MLA. The outgoing flight went well although with the usual delay (2 hours) but on my return I decided to get an earlier flight from another airline because a day before the return trip I have been monitoring the airline's reliability and they were way off their declared schedules. Fearing I'd miss my international flight later that night I took the noon flight on another airline placing my afternoon flight with Air Philippines as backup. The other airline got me on time for my international flight and a phone call from my sister confirmed that I wouldn't have made it had I took Air Philippines as they arrived and left DGTE late again.

SFO-MNL-DVO-MNL-SFO. I couldn't have asked for more. Each flight I was on was excellent though I guess it all depends on what you expect. I expect to get to where I'm going as safely as possible in an aircraft that's worthy and has been cleaned and with pilots and crew that know what they're doing. Oh if there's some food and drinks fantastic. I'd fly with PAL again in a minute! Excellent!

SIN-MLA one-way Economy class on A330. The cabin looks tired. Seats are ok. Food was tasty. The flight attendants are polite but they lack the smile and hospitality that I'm used to when flying PAL. Overall experience still good. Price is cheaper as compared to other full-serviced airlines in the region. Definitely will fly again on this airline.

Flew B777-300er to Canada. Delayed 1 hour due to some technical problems and miscommunications between ground staff. The cabin was pleasantly relaxing generous legroom with inflight entertainment monitors each seat offering lots of good movies games and music. Food was tasty it satisfied my palate crew were very friendly professional immaculately neat and well groomed. Philippine Airlines is improving now becoming more competitive I would say. Will definitely fly with them again In the future.