PAL marks 70th year

Philippine Airlines celebrates its 70th year today by commemorating its storied past while charting a course for the future. The PAL family will mark the milestone with simple but meaningful activities. Masses will be held at the airline’s various stations and facilities throughout the country and overseas.
Tonight, PAL also hosts an anniversary reception at the Newport Performing Arts Theater at the Resorts World Manila complex in Pasay City.

It will be attended by PAL staff and about 1,500 guests from government, the diplomatic corps, and the aviation, travel and business sectors.
PAL chairman and chief executive officer Dr. Lucio C. Tan will lead the airline in welcoming the guests.
A host of top-rated entertainment artists – led by Gary Valenciano, Martin Nievera, Kuh Ledesma, among others – will help PAL portray the last seven decades in a star-studded program that is both nostalgic and informative. Other surprises await those invited to the program.
As PAL turns 70, the airline has one eye on the legacies of its past and another on the goals of the future. Since its founding 70 years ago, PAL has been inextricably linked with the Filipino nation as the pioneer flag carrier, major air transport utility and partner in nation-building.
PAL was founded by a group of prominent Filipino industrialists on February 26, 1941. On March 15, 1941, a tiny Beech Model 18 aircraft carrying five passengers took off from Nielson Airport in Makati bound for Baguio –earning for PAL the distinction of being Asia’s first airline.
The flag carrier is bidding to replicate its past success in the more demanding operating and competitive landscape of the future. It faces a slate of tough challenges in this quest.
PAL reported a modest profit of $15.1 million in the third quarter (October to December 2010) of its current 2010-2011 financial year – a period when air travel gingerly recovered from a slump the previous year.
But the succeeding months, from January 2011 to the present, showed just how fragile the recovery was. The sudden eruption of political unrest in the Middle East sent crude oil prices skyrocketing to nearly $120 per barrel in late February – the highest in two and a half years.
This forced the global airline industry to flag a potential loss for carriers by the end of 2011. In fact, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has already downgraded its outlook for the year.
“Our current forecast is based on an average oil price of $84 per barrel. Today the price is over $100. For each dollar it increases, the industry is challenged to recover $1.6 billion in additional costs… 2011 is starting out as a very challenging year for airlines,” said IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani recently.