Arianespace wrote
If you look now at PAL fleet direction, the lesser dense 309 seater A333, about 5 of them, heads to Pacific region, for rotations to HNL, SYD, MEL. And these have the 2-4-2 seats at Y. PAL recognizes that passenger in this direction pay better for value.
Meanwhile, the 4 denser 363 seater A333 makes its way to the Middle East transporting OFW folks at 3-3-3 Y on a budget. PAL and CEB has largely been successful competing on this market with ME carriers because its cheap. And its growing.
Four frames do heavy rotation for this sector flying DXB,DOH,DAM, and RUH, substituted occasionally by the Pacific bound A333s. The problem, most of these flights are full, which means PAL has to bump 50 others off the plane. As the bumping progresses, it becomes one whole special flight, which PAL then flies once a week. To remedy this situation, they are converting two of the pacific A330s also to dense 3-3-3 Y configuration (359 seats) mainly to service ME to rectify this planning shortfall, while pacific region fleet can always be augmented by the A359, which saw it flying SYD and MEL already.
Going forward in the future, I could see PAL diverting the remaining pacific A333s bound to ME, with the entry of the baby boeing.
Why I would think this way?
As the airline slowly drops old boeing from its fleet for the bus, a baby replaces it, with some commonality with the older one, pilot transition is not that difficult. They already have one ready for transition, the 77w pilots. At this perspective, I could also see HNL, MEL, SYD as future routes together with the west coast cities, with 3 frames doing rotations From CEB to LAX and SFO.
Some would argue against the complexity of multiple fleet. I very much doubt about that concern. Aircraft type has different prices to begin with, some more expensive than the other, and some catering to a particular niche, which acquisition cost the airline considers a lot. And we have identified this already. Low paying and high paying markets. You can actually look at it by examining their current fleet of widebodies, and where they are deployed.
Having said all of these, the current A330 might progress to the NEO in the future, and would serve the middle east market very well, with the same biclass 360 pax.
My choice for the NEO and why PAL might get them instead of the B787-10 as you also desire for them to have is actually simple. It is the most cost effective aircraft in Asia and the middle east, as they are cheaper, low cost aircraft that has the same capacity as the B7810, with a price tag of $298 million as compared to $340 million for the Boeing (Air Finance Journal quoted rates 2023), payment for its amortization is not that difficult. I'm not sure if the baby can pay itself doing ME run with price sensitive passengers.
So you see its all related, low fares, neo. High fares, baby. simple.
P.S.
Baby actually earns more flying longer flights and PAL can fill it with high paying passengers. Don't believe me. Look at their fares for routes across the big pond. As a matter of fact, it is one source of their biggest revenue per flight.
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