Philippine Airlines

Flight 105 from SFO to Manila. Short story is they’re terrible. Boarded early to sit on the plane over an hour. No announcements. No consideration. Thankfully most passengers were patient. But seriously you must do better to compete. It’s worth flying United with a stop over for cheaper if I’ll arrive in the same time. I do not recommend this airline.

I am a somewhat frequent traveller, more than 20 flights per year. PAL is the worst airline I have ever flown.
I had 4 flight legs with them and for some reason on every leg I was sat right at the back of the plane. It looked like they sat every non-​Filipino around there too — draw your own conclusions… by the time they got to me with meal service only one dish was left.
The staff at check in and in flight are friendly enough but they are just incompetent at their jobs. They don’t keep the toilets clean during the flight, they let people sleep in the aisle, I had to go find staff to get water throughout the flight.
At one of the regional airports I had excess luggage that I was happy to pay for, it was quite a large amount but they would not take credit card. To get to an ATM I would have had to take a cab into town and then back again and probably miss the flight. They would not process it over the phone to their head office, they would not let me pay the fee between my connecting flight in MNL (other airlines in non-​credit card areas have allowed either of these solutions before). So they basically would not let me checkin and offered no solution. Again, very friendly — completely incompetent!
In the end I had to source some plastic bags and cram some of my luggage contents into them and take it as carry on (no charge for that!). Stupid, they basically would rather I take up more cabin space than check in my luggage.
I shan’t be flying with PAL again.

Disclaimer: I’m a white guy and this was my first time traveling abroad.
Route: SFO to Manila and back, in December 2014.
I chose PAL because they’re the only airline to fly non-​stop from SFO, also they don’t charge you for luggage like united. The plane left an hour and a half late. The plane was a 777 (nice to see they’re using American made planes). I was seated in the back of the plane in row 66. The seat I was supposed to sit in had duck tape holding the tray table closed. After the plane was nearly full they let me take another seat.
About an hour After leaving SFO they serve dinner, some kinda beef stew with rice… it was OK. The seat was uncomfortable. It seemed like it was missing a few layers of foam or something. so after dinner, the flight attendants forget about you for the next 5 hours. I guess they assume everyone is suppose to sleep. Then about 6 – 7 hours in to the flight they reappear, come around and give everyone a cookie and offer you a beverage, then they disappear again for 5 hours. 12 hours into the flight they serve breakfast. The breakfast was milk fish or tocino. By the time the food cart got to me it was milk fish only… I chose the power bars in my backpack.
Each seat has its own TV screen with choice of about 40 movies. you have to use their headphones. My earbuds didn’t work right. They could use an inflight janitor as the bathrooms are not the cleanest. Total flight time was 13 hours and since the plane got there on time, I assume the plane leaving late is the norm.
A little bit about Manila airport: Philippine airlines has a terminal all to its self, however if you need to go to another «terminal» its a couple miles away. MNL is like 4 separate airports that share a runway. your friends and family can’t pick you up inside as going through customs is at the door to the curb. The airport is a disorganized mess. Not enough restroom. traffic around the airport is insane. The Philippines would be better off closing this airport altogether and dividing the flights up between Subic and Clark airports.
Would I fly Philippine Airlines again? maybe but more likely not, partly because of the chaos at Manila Airport. The best thing about this flight was it was direct to the Philippines.
Next time I’ll be using Asiana Airlines, deal with the lay over in Korea and arrive at Clark airport (a former US air force base 50 miles away from Manila)

Well, what can I say about Philippines airlines? It’s direct flight to the Philippines, their planes are getting better, staff are helpful and friendly, their onboard bathrooms have been fairly clean when I used it, meals on board are ok so far during the 5x I have used their services. Meals I have had on board is adobo, longanisa, boneless bangus, pasta, etc. All have been pretty good. The seats are still small especially for the not so skinny person. Not talking about me but the passenger that I would have to sit next to. ;p The staff at the check-in’s were pretty friendly but can be strict with restrictions to luggage.
The airlines like Southwest Airlines seats are better and easier to sit in. I do have to say that PAL seats are better at reclining position than most of the aircrafts I have used! Room in between the seats or aisles are pretty tight still. At least, we can watch movies individually but the last flight in to Manila, our row of three had no sound so we were watching movies with no sound or subtitles.
They still need work but worth it for the direct flight to the Philippines.

My experience with Philippine Airlines has been by far the worst experience ever! We were on time for our flight from Taipei to Manila, where we need to transfer flights to LAX. Everyone was on time… But these two women came late, so we ended up leaving an hour and 15 minutes later than our promised departure time. When we were on the plane, we told the flight attendants that we had a connecting flight, and she said it was going to wait for us. Right when we landed, a flight attendant met us at the entrance with our names on the paper and told us to run with her because we were going to make our flight. Our flight was supposed to leave at 9:00pm, we got there at 8:45pm and only had two carry ons. When we finally got to the desk. The flight attendant told us that they changed our flight already and now we do not have a direct flight to LAX, now we have a flight to San Francisco and another connecting flight to LAX. I don’t see how come they didn’t wait for us for 5 minutes if they waited for those two other ladies for 30 minutes. if they didn’t wait for those ladies, we could have been on time. Also, we had 8 flights on Philippine airlines, and most of them were delayed 2 hours and more and our flight from Manila to Taiwan was cancelled and we had to wait a day. This wasn’t because of weather either.
Also! On top of that, initially they gave us an itinerary, and kept changing the flights on us. We ended up having a 21 hour layover, so I had to call customer service to change it and they wanted me to pay to change the flight when initially, our layover was only 8 hours. Now they have us on a 3 hour layover, but we could have had an earlier flight. I will never recommend Philippines Airline to anyone!

This is hands-​down the worst airline ever.
We booked our tickets about 5 months prior to our trip. We booked SFO — Manila — Boracay — Bangkok — SFO. That’s the only part that went well with our booking.
Since booking the flight, they had me change «Boracay — Bangkok» flight 3 times. One of the changes rolled over to a different day, so I called them to look for a flight that’s closer to the original date. After a long — hard to decipher — phone conversation, I was able to change the flight that kept the dates the same.
But all that proved to be a useless effort in the end as they changed the flight again 8 hours before getting on the plane…
The check-​in was another ordeal. First of all, if you’re flying out of US, get to the airport EARLY. We got there 2 hours earlier, like most international flights, and I was at the tail end of a VERY VERY long line. Evidently, Filipinos have a custom in their culture where they take back goods, so almost everyone in the line had minimum of two huge boxes, it naturally made the check-​in process a lot slower than average. I saw a few people having to re-​pack because they went over the weight limit, which made it even slower.
The whole check-​in process took 2 full hours! — we ended up having to run to our gates.
This is just a brief summary of all the things that has gone wrong with our experience with PAL. There is plenty more where this came from (delays, inefficiency, poor costumer service, etc) but I’ll stop here.
The bottom line is, I would stay away from them. Even if it means paying a bit more, I will never fly with PAL again.

We always take PAL due to direct flight. But if there’s another option we wont fly with PAL. Our last trip with my family and friends was horrible.
1.) SFO Check in counter, we arrive at the airport 4:30 and there were few people ahead of us. We were able to finish after 2hrs. The people is slower than slow! I was traveling with my 17months old daughter and 11yo son, and they got so tired and cranky from waiting. Also upon check in i
2.) PLANE — a) seats were so tight! There we were traveling as family and they put us in separate seat. My 11yo son was seated away from us… So ridiculous!
3.) Online check in — Sucks! My husband waited all night just so we can check in online to get better seats since we have a baby. But when the online check in works it says «Sorry you have assigned seat already» we were not able to pick out desired seats. That was so inconvenient! requested for bulk seat so i can use the basinet and i was told sorry those seats were taken. But when i was on the plane regular passenger with no kids were seated there… How messed up is that! The airline already knows that there’s a baby passenger why would they give it to passengers that doesn’t require basinet? I don’t mind paying extra if thats what they want!
4.) Crew — i asked for water so i can make milk for my baby and the crew said ok ill be back and she never came back. I had to ask another crew to bring me water and then the crew never gave me food for my daughter. She had to eat from my dinner.
It was horrible! I think the new batch needs to be re trained!

This is a review for PAL’s ticketing office in SF.
SFO’s website said to contact the airline to ask their policy on issuing a gate pass to escort an unaccompanied minor or elderly.
My parents are flying on PAL in less than 2 weeks to permanently move to The Philippines and since my Dad has walking problems I would like to properly see both of them off, especially my Dad.
1) The person that answered the phone did not know what a gate pass was
2) When I explained what it was he said I have to ask the airport
3) I explained that website said to call the airline since policies vary
4) He asked why I needed to go in without a ticket and I explained why
5) He said he did not «think» that was a good reason and that they had people at the airport to escort the elderly (really man, you think someone’s gonna cater to my parents the whole time while waiting to board the plane?)
Really dude, I did not ask for you to THINK anything. He could have politely said, you’ll have to ask the ticketing counter upon check in. I need facts, not a question to why I want a gate pass when in the first place he did not know what it was, did not know the answer of how it could be issued and thirdly, judged the shig out of me.
Stupid FOB. Your customer service is crap.
Don’t even get my started on their old planes… but I won’t go there.
Sucks, because PAL is the only airline that has a direct flight to Manila.

Beware of paying any money or credit card charge to PAL as they ignore you if there is any problem. Bought 3 international tickets that were unusable because after purchasing the tickets found out that PAL does not have a baggage agreement with Hawaiian Airlines so the 6 bags we were bringing could not be transferred to our final destination. Two weeks before the flight I found this out and cancelled the three tickets and rebooked the entire flight through PAL At a cost of over $ 5000.00. I ask for a refund of my original cancelled ticket and was told that it would be submitted to Manila. I am now waiting
And they are not returning my e mail enquries.

Im reviewing Philippine Airlines Domestic flight from kalibo aklan to manila.
What a nightmare after a beautiful vacay in boracay. Now getting tortured by Philippine airlines deficiencies. flight delay for almost 4 hours n meal compliment didnt arrived on tme as well… c, mon Philippineaielines u want to hring pn rpurism here be efficient n promt .I cant n shud not recommend to friends to even visit boracay via Philippine Airlines… its a boobooooooo!!!

This is the worst airline I have every used — ripped me off by charging me twice for the same seat. Alan Q. Coo is the head of the SF office and ignores letters and calls — he has bigger things to take care of like the $ 80,000 fine the US Dept. Transportation fine for «deceptive practices.»

I would rather make my own 747 out of elephant manure and fly that to Manila, than use the sub-​par services of Philippine Airlines.
PAL is an embarrassment to the Philippines, the Airline industry, and the Human Race. If the Wright Brothers were alive to see this atrocity, they would immediately die of shame.

If I could give zero stars I would.
I am trying to reschedule my flight and my ticket specifically says a $ 200 penalty fee but when I try to reschedule my flight the customer service says they have to upgrade my flight and have to charge me an additional $ 400 making my total charge $ 600. BUT the day I want to rebook for is the same price as my original ticket so when I tell them the price is the same, PAL customer service just says they don’t have access to the internet price and have to raise my ticket the additional $ 400 to the higher fare…
If PAL is going state that there is a $ 200 penalty fee then they should honor price if the changed date is available at the same price as the original ticket. But for them to force you into a higher fair simply because they don’t enable you to change your flight on the internet is completely incompetent, dishonest, and bad business.
I will definitely be calling my credit card company to dispute the additional charges and possibly try to get a full refund.
And after this I don’t know that I will use PAL again just to validate my concerns and not give them the privilege of getting my future business.
PAL is definitely the worst airline that I have ever dealt with on ticketing and customer service.
Two thumbs down!

Well, I hate to say it but PAL really needs to step it up regarding their services. I used PAL internationally and both outgoing and incoming flights were overbooked, seating arrangements double booked and delayed. It was filipino time delayed boo!
However, once you get on the flight and your in the air its smooth sailing –the plane itself is very spacious and the flight attendants are so attentive. Always calling you sir or mam’ tending to your needs always with a smile on their face. The planes are clean and the in-​flight entertainment is great. You have a selection off all types of games, movies new and old and filipino movies as well. Just like in Manila they are constantly feeding you. The menu is pretty good, added bonus — hot valerio’s pandesal.
I have used PAL when I was in Manila to hop onto another island and their domestic flights are good as well. Even with the smaller plane — it was clean, great in-​flight entertainment, awesome snacks.
The check-​in process is completely disorganized, expect their to be a few issues.
TIps:
**Even though their flights are always delayed, arrive to the airport at least 2 – 3 hours in advance.
**Better luck buying from a broker than directly online — you can save a ton of money. (I booked through a broker and saved $ 1000 compared to booking directly online.)
*Save your appetite, they overfeed you on the plane.
*Get assigned seating when you book your flight. (I had to pay an additional $ 50 last minute so that me and the hubby can sit together — boo!)
Overall, I would prefer PAL again, not only because they are direct flights to Manila but the food and customer service once on the plane is pretty good.