It's very much up in the air as to whether global air travel - borne aloft, or not, by the global economy - is recovering from the Great Recession. But Philippine Airlines, for one, seems to be wagering that a recovery is indeed underway.
That is the conclusion I draw from PAL's latest news, announced just as the Philippines' national flag carrier begins its 70th year of operation. To wit: PAL has purchased two state of the art Boeing B777-300ER jetliners, and is using them to update its service between Manila and Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, and between Manila and Hong Kong.
The arrival of the triple-7s, in turn, allows PAL to redeploy other aircraft and use them to revive two long-haul routes it abandoned some years ago. Those routes are (as of March 28) Manila-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Manila-Brisbane, PAL's third destination in Australia, which resumes March 17.
This gives travelers in the Asia-Pacific region a wider choice of airlines. That is the very region that is reviving fastest when it comes to business and leisure air travel, according to the numbers-crunchers at the International Air Transport Association, in Geneva. The region that comes second in air travel growth by IATA's count is - you guessed it - the Middle East.
PAL, citing a poor market following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, stopped flying to Brisbane back in 1998. Now, encouraged by signs of revival, PAL's service will resume to Brisbane twice a week on an Airbus A330-300.
In the case of Saudi Arabia, PAL spokespeople say the presence of 2.2 million expatriate Filipino workers justifies the return of a service that was suspended in 2006 for unspecified "commercial reasons.'' PAL is evidently counting on winning back Filipinos flying to and from the Middle East, as well as other travelers. It will fly a Boeing 747-400 on this route.
In line with all this, PAL - which was founded amidst the storm clouds of World War II, on March 15, 1941 - has upgraded its business class, called Mabuhay, and its economy class, called Fiesta, with new food, new on-demand in-flight entertainment systems and new seats. The carrier does not have a first class.
I haven't flown with PAL, so I can't personally vouch for the airline. But as I discovered in November, on my first visit to the Philippines, Filipino hospitality is very real and warm, musical and social. If the airline is good at transfering that culture from the ground to the air, it has a better chance to make these new moves - which are not without risk - pay off. It's a welcome sign of confidence during turbulent times.
Showing posts with label the Philippines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Philippines. Show all posts
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Monday, September 28, 2009
Cebu City, Discovered
CEBU CITY, the Philippines - The headline on this post is tongue in cheek, of course. People have been living in Cebu, one of the Philippines' leading cities, for hundreds of years. I discovered the place for myself just last week, just ahead of the typhoon that has devastated Manila this week, killing, at last count, 240 people in heavy flooding.
Cebu, located 375 miles southeast of the capital, has, thankfully, been spared the worst of Typhoon Ondoy. Like the rest of the country, Cebu - an island and province as well as a city - is on low-lying land, so it is vulnerable to ocean storms and to the threat of global warming.
I was based just outside the city at Shangri-la Hotels' comfortable Mactan Resort, a lovely place with white sand beaches, a luxurious spa called CHI, smart shops that smartly source goods from talented local artisans and good food, most of it international in style. Just outside the hotel grounds, everything changes, becoming more congested and visibly poorer. A few minutes drive puts you in Cebu City, which has a metropolitan population of 1.8 million people. I think all of them were behind the wheel when I explored the city. The traffic is epic.
The first major explorer to land in what is now Cebu City was the Spanish navigator Ferdinand Magellan, who made landfall in 1521 and was killed in battle there later that same year. Eventually, Spain colonized the Philippines and stayed for four centuries, until the early 20th century. Spain has left its imprint on the Philippines, where many people go under Hispanic names. Cebu City, dotted with whitewashed vintage churches and infused with a traditional form of Catholicism, reminded me a lot of Brazil. Some fellow travelers compared it to Central America. Cebu and the Philippines are, of course, Asian, but are unique among Asian societies.
The well-attended downtown cathedral, rebuilt several times, is a landmark of the city, as is a weathered cross that marks the spot where Magellan is believed to have first landed; it is now several hundred yards inland. The modern city, though it has a thriving tourist trade, doesn't depend on tourism, which is undoubtably good, given the sharp ups and downs of the travel industry. A port city, it is a center of trade and ocean shipping and manufacturing; the city is a center of furniture-making. It is also home to a number of music shops and at least one guitar factory. I watched local artisans fashion guitars by hand in the small plant, later taking some finished guitars and ukeleles off the wall to demonstrate their sound. One artisan-cum-salesman strummed "Has Anybody Seen My Gal'' while visitors browsed the factory.
Before visiting Cebu, I had never seen a Filipino city and had no clear idea what to expect. Bustling and industrious, Cebu, which is nevertheless marred by poverty, is not a pretty city. But it is lively, filled with the music and energy that marks so much of Filipino culture. On the fringes of the city, I saw goats, chickens, feral-looking dogs and the occasional cow wandering amidst vacant lots and people's homes. It is ironic that free-range poultry so beloved of yuppies and gourmets may be most in evidence in poor countries; people depend on them for meat and eggs, and don't necessarily depend on the huge factory farms that distinguish North American culture. As I rode around the city, I saw people packed into jitney buses, hanging on to trucks and piling into pedicabs, known locally as tricycles.
The energy and good-humor of Filipino culture amazed me. I wound up my visit with an al fresco supper at the resort, with the sound and sights of the sea washing up against the deck where I took food and drink. The next day, well inside security and just outside the entryway to my plane to Hong Kong, I saw something I'd never seen at an airport: A four-piece band playing upbeat music by the plane door, putting a lift in the step of boarding passengers.
Cebu, located 375 miles southeast of the capital, has, thankfully, been spared the worst of Typhoon Ondoy. Like the rest of the country, Cebu - an island and province as well as a city - is on low-lying land, so it is vulnerable to ocean storms and to the threat of global warming.
I was based just outside the city at Shangri-la Hotels' comfortable Mactan Resort, a lovely place with white sand beaches, a luxurious spa called CHI, smart shops that smartly source goods from talented local artisans and good food, most of it international in style. Just outside the hotel grounds, everything changes, becoming more congested and visibly poorer. A few minutes drive puts you in Cebu City, which has a metropolitan population of 1.8 million people. I think all of them were behind the wheel when I explored the city. The traffic is epic.
The first major explorer to land in what is now Cebu City was the Spanish navigator Ferdinand Magellan, who made landfall in 1521 and was killed in battle there later that same year. Eventually, Spain colonized the Philippines and stayed for four centuries, until the early 20th century. Spain has left its imprint on the Philippines, where many people go under Hispanic names. Cebu City, dotted with whitewashed vintage churches and infused with a traditional form of Catholicism, reminded me a lot of Brazil. Some fellow travelers compared it to Central America. Cebu and the Philippines are, of course, Asian, but are unique among Asian societies.
The well-attended downtown cathedral, rebuilt several times, is a landmark of the city, as is a weathered cross that marks the spot where Magellan is believed to have first landed; it is now several hundred yards inland. The modern city, though it has a thriving tourist trade, doesn't depend on tourism, which is undoubtably good, given the sharp ups and downs of the travel industry. A port city, it is a center of trade and ocean shipping and manufacturing; the city is a center of furniture-making. It is also home to a number of music shops and at least one guitar factory. I watched local artisans fashion guitars by hand in the small plant, later taking some finished guitars and ukeleles off the wall to demonstrate their sound. One artisan-cum-salesman strummed "Has Anybody Seen My Gal'' while visitors browsed the factory.
Before visiting Cebu, I had never seen a Filipino city and had no clear idea what to expect. Bustling and industrious, Cebu, which is nevertheless marred by poverty, is not a pretty city. But it is lively, filled with the music and energy that marks so much of Filipino culture. On the fringes of the city, I saw goats, chickens, feral-looking dogs and the occasional cow wandering amidst vacant lots and people's homes. It is ironic that free-range poultry so beloved of yuppies and gourmets may be most in evidence in poor countries; people depend on them for meat and eggs, and don't necessarily depend on the huge factory farms that distinguish North American culture. As I rode around the city, I saw people packed into jitney buses, hanging on to trucks and piling into pedicabs, known locally as tricycles.
The energy and good-humor of Filipino culture amazed me. I wound up my visit with an al fresco supper at the resort, with the sound and sights of the sea washing up against the deck where I took food and drink. The next day, well inside security and just outside the entryway to my plane to Hong Kong, I saw something I'd never seen at an airport: A four-piece band playing upbeat music by the plane door, putting a lift in the step of boarding passengers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)