Philippine Airlines

[Trefor]

I'm off to Manila in December so am keeping an eye on the flight situation.

PAL don't have the rights ( ie aren't prepared to pay the grossly inflated Russian charges and / or bribe the right officials ) to fly over Russian airspace so at present the flight takes a big detour south over India adding 2 / 3 hours to the journey times.

http://www.businesstraveller.com/new...oute-to-europe

Reports are that this will change from August but the downside is that this allows PAL to change the plane they fly LHR-MNL to the Airbus A340 which is a poorer quality plane that the Boeing 777s that they fly at the moment.

http://www.philippineflightnetwork.c...n-service.html

Interesting to hear about the flight routes/times. I thought the PAL journey time was longer than it should be.

The A340 is a better plane than the 777, so don't worry about that.

[grahamw48]

...and its got more engines...and a lot of it is made in blighty.

[Dedworth]

...and its got more engines...and a lot of it is made in blighty.

[London_Manila]

As long as the flights are still direct I don't mind what aircraft they use

Actual flying time will come down if they fly over Russia so that's a bonus