Statement by PAL President & COO Jaime J. Bautista on Pres. Aquino’s aviation sector proposal

We welcome the President's vision to promote a competitive international aviation sector anchored on "a strong Philippine-based aviation industry", which we firmly believe is indispensable to the development of Philippine tourism, trade and economic progress.

As the national flag carrier, we at Philippine Airlines will continue to work in partnership with government to attract more foreign visitors from both existing and new markets overseas.

PAL has always led the way in promoting RP tourism, by being the most aggressive airline in pioneering new routes, serving key tourism markets, and making necessary investments to put the Philippines on the tourism map as a destination for the world.

In 2011, PAL will launch a new route to New Delhi, India, opening up the Philippines to the potentially enormous market of Indian tourists, in the same way that we've done in past years by pioneering new routes from Korea, Japan, China, Canada, and the United States.

PAL is the only airline flying between the Philippines and Canada, Tokyo (to/from Cebu), Western Japan, Las Vegas, Melbourne, and nonstop from the U.S. West Coast - all rich sources of tourist traffic.

PAL flies 2.9 million seats into RP every year, more than any other airline operating to and from the Philippines. PAL operates more seats and more flights from China, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the United States to the Philippines than any other airline.