PR's Allan Coo being interviewed for Omni TV
Some attractive flight attendants – with their cardboard colleague!
A lovely touch: 2 of our famous Mounties on hand to greet incoming pax
What's an inaugural flight without some dancers?
Ahh, YYZ Terminal 3 on a busy Friday night. Planes bound for LHR, POS, KHI, AMS. And me? My destination is Gate C33. Tonight, I am to help welcome in the inaugural Philippine Airlines flight to Toronto.
OK so it's not as exciting as actually getting on a plane, but the welcome is very warm and clearly, according to the many members of the Filipino-Canadian community present, it's a red letter day.
"This route has been some 6 months in the planning" Allan Coo, Country Manager for Canada told me. The service, which represents PAL’s 26th international destination uses new B777 aircraft (42B + 328Y) and will operate 3 times weekly until January 16th when it increases to daily. (The flights operate MNL-YYZ-YVR-MNL.)
Obviously there will be a huge VFR traffic for the route - as well as the thousands of Filipino workers who come to Canada - but on board the arriving flight were 30 travel writers about to be Niagara Falled and ice-wined to encourage inbound tourism. And this week, a contigent of Filipino tour operators will arrive on a trade mission to encourage Canadians to visit the land of 7,107 islands. Talk about a new beach destination!
PAL is now owned 49% by the San Miguel Beer company and they are putting big plans in place for the carrier with more new aircraft and routes in the planning stages.
“The Philippines is a great hub for travel to southeast Asia," says Coo, "Between that, the VFR, leisure and and business travel – we have great hopes for this route!"
