PAL Express

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PAL Express
De Havilland Canada DHC-8-400 (PAL Express) 092.jpg
IATA code : PR
ICAO code : PAL
Call sign : PHILIPPINE
Founding: 2008
Operation stopped: 2010
Seat: Pasay City , Philippines
Turnstile :
Fleet size: 8th
Aims: national
PAL Express ceased operations in 2010. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation.

PAL Express (Philippine Airlines Express) was the low-cost airline brand of Philippine Airlines , headquartered in Pasay City . PAL Express used the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila and the Mactan-Cebu International Airport in Cebu as hubs . The company existed until March 28, 2010. When the former Air Philippines was renamed Airphil Express , all flight routes and aircraft from PAL Express were transferred to Airphil Express. The majority of both companies, PAL and Airphil Express, belong to the Lucio Tan Group, which bundled its low-cost flight activities in one company through this step.

history

On April 15, 2008, Philippine Airlines announced that it was planning to set up a new low-cost airline called PAL Express. In this context, the order for 9 De Havilland Canada DHC-8-300 and -400 turboprop aircraft was announced, which should represent the initial fleet of PAL Express. The aim of the airline is to serve mainly domestic island destinations and smaller airports with the small planes, which are not served by the large Philippine Airlines.

PAL Express was officially launched on May 5, 2008 with an initial route of 8 flights a day between Manila and Caticlan, the gateway to the popular holiday island of Boracay . In a next step, the hub at Mactan-Cebu International Airport was opened on May 19, 2008 and the new routes from Cebu to Caticlan , Bacolod , Tacloban , Butuan and General Santos started. On the same day, a daily flight from Manila to Busuanga in Palawan was added to the flight schedule. In the following months further destinations were added, so that by September 18, 2008, 21 routes were regularly served, 11 of them from Cebu and 10 from Manila.

The PAL Express flights were also marketed by Air Philippines . There were close ties between Philippine Airlines (PAL) and Air Philippines after the majority of the two companies belonged to the Lucio Tan Group. For example, the Manila-Caticlan route previously served by Air Philippines with De Havilland DHC-8 turboprop aircraft was taken over by PAL Express at the start.

On July 1, 2009, PAL Express was connected to the Philippine Airlines “Mabuhay Miles” frequent flyer program , so that bonus miles could now also be collected on the PAL Express routes. It was planned to set up Davao City as a third hub.

Destinations

PAL Express served the following airports in the Philippines:

Luzon
Visayas
Mindanao

fleet

PAL Express De Havilland DHC-8-400 at Davao City Airport .

As of July 1, 2008, the PAL Express fleet consisted of 8 aircraft:

The used aircraft, it revealed only turboprop machines of type DHC-8 from the Canadian manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace . The DHC-8-300 models have 50 seats, a cargo capacity of 1.1 tons and a range of 1819 kilometers. The larger DHC-8-400 have 76 seats, a cargo capacity of 2.1 tons and a range of 2826 kilometers.

Incidents

  • On August 11, 2008, a DHC-8-400 of the PAL Express, en route with 75 passengers and 3 crew members on board, landed on runway 04 at Catarman Airport with the front wheel in a soft spot on the runway. Nobody was injured in the incident.
  • On November 15, 2008, another De Havilland Canada DHC-8-400, en route from Zamboanga to Davao City , had to make an emergency landing at Davao International Airport due to problems with the landing gear. Nobody on board was injured and the plane landed safely.

See also

Web links

Commons : PAL Express  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ wings900.com: PAL Express has ceased operations , August 3, 2010.
  2. ↑ palexpressair.com: PAL Express founding ( memento of the original from September 26th, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.palexpressair.com archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. August 19, 2009.
  3. ↑ sg.biz.yahoo.com: PAL Express  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / sg.biz.yahoo.com   August 20, 2009.
  4. ↑ Archived flight plan from 2008 on web.archive.org: web.archive.org August 16, 2017.
  5. ↑ palexpressair.com: PAL Express Fleet ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.palexpressair.com archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. August 19, 2009.
  6. ↑ The Aviation Herald :Accident: Philippine Airlines DH8D at Catarman on Aug 11th 2008, hit soft spot on landing runway August 20, 2009.