Philippine Airlines and Airbus have finalized the two sides’ Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for nine Airbus A350-1000 aircraft.
The airline will add the nine aircraft to its fleet allowing it to introduce new services to North America, including the East Coast, bolster its offering to the West Coast, and explore the possibility of flying to Europe. The Airbus A350-1000s will join the carrier’s current fleet of two Airbus A350-900 aircraft.
“This order will see PAL operating one of the youngest and most modern widebody fleets in Asia. We selected the A350-1000 to give PAL the power to match capacity closely to predicted demand on both the very longest routes to the North American East Coast but also on our prime trunk routes to the West Coast and potentially to Europe as well,” said Captain Stanley Ng, President and Chief Operating Officer of Philippine Airlines.
Currently, it does not operate any flights to Europe, with its farthest eastern destinations being airports in the Middle East. Its US network includes San Francisco International Airport (SFO), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), New York John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), and Honolulu International Airport (HNL), while in Canada the airline flies to Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) and Vancouver International Airport (YVR).
The carrier and Airbus signed the MoU in May 2023, with previous reports indicating that the two sides would finalize the agreement during the Paris Air Show 2023.
“We thank Philippine Airlines for its ongoing confidence in Airbus and look forward to working with the airline as the A350 becomes the flagship of its widebody fleet,” said Christian Sherer, Chief Commercial Officer and Head of International at Airbus.
In addition to the pair of A350s, Philippine Airlines also operates 10 Airbus A330-300 and nine Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. Previously, it had up to six A350-900 aircraft. However, these exited the airline’s fleet between 2021 and 2022, according to ch-aviation.com data.