By Emmie V. Abadilla

Philippine Airlines (PAL) will introduce a regular service between Manila and Perth, the first-ever nonstop air link between Western Australia and the Philippines in March 2020.

By taking PAL’s non-stop flight to Perth, travelers will save at least four hours and a half in travel time versus taking other airlines that require a stopover and flight connections.

PR 223 (Manila-Perth service) will depart from Manila every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday starting March 30, 2020, at 12:05AM, and arrive in Perth Airport at 7:20AMlocal time.

PR 224 (Perth-Manila service) will leave Perth’s Terminal 1 International at 8:40AM local time and touch down in Manila at 3:50PM on the same days.

“Our pioneer nonstop flights will allow us to vigorously promote the Philippines as a top-notch tourist experience for residents of Western Australia,” says PAL’s Chief Sales and Chief Marketing Officer Eugene C. Go.

PAL will deploy its long-range Airbus A321neo aircraft on the Manila-Perth-Manila route.

PAL’s 168-seater Airbus A321neo has 12 seats in business class and 156 seats in economy class.

The business class cabin boasts generous seat pitch (legroom) of 60 inches and seats that are up to 23 inches wide and recline to become full flat beds, measuring 78 inches in length.

The economy cabins offer ample stretching room with a seat pitch of 32 inches.For Inflight Entertainment, the myPALeSuite Personal TV screens are embedded in all seats across all cabin classes, giving passengers a choice of more than 300 hours of movies, TV and music. High-speed Wi-Fi connectivity is offered for all passengers.

PAL operates the largest network of flights between the Philippines and Australia. Perth is PAL’s fourth Australian gateway, joining Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, all of which are served with nonstop flights using Airbus A330 and A321neo aircraft.

Overall, PAL offers a total of nineteen (19) weekly nonstop flights to these four Australian destinations, as well as three (3) weekly flights to Auckland in New Zealand and four (4) weekly flights to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.

Australia is the Philippines’ fifth largest source of tourist visitors: 279.821 Australians visited the Philippines in 2018, while more than 203,000 Australians visited in the first nine months of 2019 alone.