After signing a Memorandum of Understanding in May, the airline Philippine Airlines confirmed the acquisition of nine A350-1000 jets, from Airbus, during the Paris Air Show, on Tuesday.
The aircraft are expected to replace the Boeing 777-300ER currently in service and will be configured with 380 seats in three classes of service. According to the company, the two models will coexist for some time, but in the end they will be retired.
Deliveries are expected to take place between 2025 and 2027 and the A350-1000s will join the two A350-900s already in service with the Philippine carrier – the Philippines admits it may expand that fleet in the future or replace them with their bigger brother.
Philippine Airlines plans to use the widebodies on flights from Manila to the United States, both on the west and east coasts of the country.
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The A350, which completed 10 years since its maiden flight, is approaching 1,000 firm orders. Until May, Airbus had 967 orders from 54 customers.
“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. At the same time the aircraft will use significantly less fuel than older aircraft of a similar size, which also brings an important reduction in carbon emissions,” said the Captain Stanley K. Ng, the company’s chief operating officer.
