In our humble opinion, Philippine Airlines’ biggest competitor is not Cebu Pacific, but more of Cathay Pacific. Well firstly, Hong Kong is very near Manila. Second, they share almost the same market as there are also a lot of Filipinos who use Cathay Pacific to travel to places also within PAL’s network. Third, they are both legacy airlines. Lastly, they both operate a fleet of twin-engine aircraft.
The biggest advantage of PAL over Cathay Pacific is that the former has domestic routes whereas the latter is purely international.
However, there is one thing we noticed. If you want to predict the future of PAL’s fleet, simply take a look at the fleet of Cathay Pacific. You will notice a lot of similarities. In fact if not of this pandemic, PAL was already considering putting an order for newer long-range jets to replace some of the aging Boeing 777-300ER in the fleet.
A comparison between the Cathay Pacific and Philippine Airlines fleet
Of course, the difference between the number of aircraft in the Cathay Pacific fleet is far from that of PAL. However, in terms of aircraft type, they are almost identical.
| Aircraft | Cathay Pacific Fleet | Philippine Airlines fleet |
|---|---|---|
| Airbus A320-200 | 1 | 7 |
| Airbus A321-200 | 5 | 24 |
| Airbus A321neo | 4 | 8 |
| Airbus A330-300 | 40 | 15 |
| Airbus A350-900 | 28 | 6 |
| Airbus A350-1000 | 15 | X |
| Boeing 777-300 | 17 | X |
| Boeing 777-300ER | 47 | 10 |
If you will notice, both operate the same type of aircraft families with Cathay Pacific operating a few more variants. Also, the Boeing 777-300 is slowly being retired. Cathay Pacific also has a pending order for Boeing 777-9X.
With regards to Cathay Pacific now operating A320 family jets, this was a result of the merge between Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon. The former absorbed the latter including the aircraft which includes narrowbodies. Thus, all Cathay Dragon pending A321neo orders are now taken by Cathay Pacific.
Similar strategy of frequency over capacity
We can never say that PAL copies Cathay Pacific nor the other way around but both are similar airlines that share almost the same international traveler market. PAL used to operate Airbus A340-300 and Boeing 747-400, so did Cathay Pacific. PAL also never considered ordering the superjumbo Airbus A380. So did Cathay Pacific.
Other airlines operating nearby have A380s such as Singapore Airlines, Korean Air, Thai International Airways, China Southern, Asiana, Malaysia Airlines, and ANA.
Cathay Pacific saw the trend going towards more frequencies than more capacity, which is why they decided to maintain a fleet of twin-engine aircraft. PAL went the same direction too.
Before also the pandemic came, PAL was studying possible replacements for some of their aging Boeing 777-300ER, and those aircraft highly being considered were the Airbus A350-1000 and the Boeing 777-9X. While an announcement was never made, you would see that Cathay Pacific operates the A350-1000 and has pending orders for the Boeing 777-9X.
Will PAL really order a new aircraft?
Not at this time especially that they will be undergoing restructuring after filing for Chapter 11 in the United States. They are returning quite a number of aircraft, hence, orders for additional new jets are 99% unlikely within the next 5 years or so. PAL forecasts that airlines may recover in 2025 yet. PAL also has 13 Airbus A321neo pending delivery.
However, PAL’s future fleet would be hard to predict as of this point as we will also need to wait for how the restructuring will go. Maybe by 2022, we would be able to see PAL’s new direction. One thing is for sure, their main competitor is international legacy airlines such as Cathay Pacific. If not for this pandemic, it would be easy to predict the future of PAL’s fleet just by looking at Cathay Pacific. Today though, we do expect a lot of changes with how airlines will operate, customer preference, travel trends, and safety protocols.
So will PAL fly the Airbus A350-1000 or the Boeing 777-9X in the future? We all hope they will!
