PAL flies to Ho Chi Minh City July 3

Philippine Airlines will start a regular service between Manila and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on July 3, 2001, reviving an important regional route after a gap of three years.

PAL will operate twice a week to Ho Chi Minh using its own aircraft and also code-share on Vietnam Airlines’ two flights a week on the route.

This will technically give PAL and Vietnam Air a combined frequency of four flights weekly to one of Southeast Asia’s most promising tourist and business destinations.

Under the code-share scheme, both carriers allocate an equal number of seats on their respective flights for the sale and use of the other airline. These flights will carry both PAL (PR) and Vietnam Air (VN) codes in the flight reservation systems.

“Passengers will benefit greatly from this deal as their flight choices have now effectively doubled,” said Henry So Uy, PAL executive vice president for the Commercial Group.

“With this cooperative venture, we can offer the traveler to Ho Chi Minh four flights on different days of the week. Indeed, we are committed to develop this route jointly with Vietnam Airlines.”

PAL-operated flights (PR 591) depart Manila every Tuesday and Thursday at 7:20 a.m., arriving in Ho Chi Minh City at 8:45 a.m.

The return service (PR 592) departs Ho Chi Minh on the same days at 9:55 a.m. and arrives back in Manila at 1:20 p.m.

The flag carrier will deploy widebody Airbus A330-300 aircraft, which seats 48 passengers in Mabuhay (business) class and 230 in economy, on the route. Departures and arrivals in Manila for these flights are handled at the NAIA Centennial Terminal 2.

The flights operated by Vietnam Air (PR 933) depart Manila every Monday and Saturday at 4:00 p.m., landing in Ho Chi Minh at 5:40 p.m.

The reverse leg (PR 934) leaves Ho Chi Minh at 11:30 a.m. of the same days, touching down in Manila at 3:00 p.m.

Vietnam Air utilizes narrow-bodied Airbus A320-200 jets on the route. Passengers taking these code-shared flights depart from and arrive at the NAIA Terminal 1.

PAL has a long attachment to Ho Chi Minh City. The airline first flew into the southern Vietnamese city, then known as Saigon, on November 1, 1968. PAL was one of the few carriers to brave the fierce conflict engulfing the country, which by then had reached a crescendo.

A few months before the inaugural flight, Saigon was rocked by a series of major military attacks known as the Tet offensive. Though its flights were vulnerable to the fighting, PAL persevered in servicing Saigon until March 1970 when it halted operations to the war-torn city.

The airline resumed flights on September 1, 1986. But operational difficulties arising from the 1997 Asian currency crisis forced another suspension of the service on June 5, 1998.

Ho Chi Minh City becomes PAL’s 18th international destination in 11 countries. It is the flag carrier’s seventh point in the Asean region after Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.

Flights to Bangkok are code-shared with Kuwait Airways while those to the three Malaysian cities are code-shared with Malaysia Airlines.