After my ground experience in Manila I was extremely excited to board my Philippine Airlines flight to Toronto. So, how is Philippine Airlines’ A350? Can they compete with other excellent airlines in the region, or do they still have a long way to go?
Philippine Airlines doesn’t belong to one of the major global alliances, though they do have reasonable paid business class fares between many markets. In particular, they seem to have excellent fares out of Taipei, which worked great for this trip.
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I managed to book the following for ~1, 200USD one-way, with the first segment on the A321, and the second segment on the A350-900:
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I’m always excited to board a long haul flight, though was especially excited to get comfortable after the ground experience I had in Manila. Boarding was scheduled to start at 3:45PM, and sure enough, that’s exactly when boarding started (even if the whole process was chaos).
I boarded through the second set of doors, where I was directed left into the business class cabin once my boarding pass was verified.
Philippine Airlines has a variant of the Thompson Aero Vantage XL seat on their A350s, which you’ll find on several other airlines. Philippine Airlines has a total of 30 business class seats, spread across eight rows in a 1-2-1 configuration.
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As is standard with these staggered seats, in each row seat configurations alternate, as the footwell for a particular seat is to the side of seats in front.
Along the windows, in even numbered rows seats are closer to the aisles and further from the windows. These wouldn’t be my preferred seats, since they lack privacy and it’s hard to look out the windows.
Instead I recommend window seats in odd numbered rows, which are much cozier — they’re close to the windows, they’re further from the aisles, and they feel like they have more privacy. I selected seat 7A, the last “true” window seat on the left side, in the second to last row.
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To the side of the seat was some exposed storage space, as well as the seat controls, entertainment controls, a 110v outlet, a USB outlet, and headphone jacks.
The tray table slid out from the side console, and couldn’t be folded over in half, or anything. If it’s extended, there’s no way you’re getting out.
The one major downside to staggered seats is that the footwells can be restrictive, though these footwells were on the more spacious side as far as staggered configurations go. It wasn’t as restrictive as a “throne” seat, which you’ll find in some staggered layouts.
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Already waiting at my seat upon boarding were a pair of headphones, which were decent quality, though certainly not Bose or B&O.
There was also some half decent bedding, including a pillow and blanket. The bedding isn’t bad, but it’s not great either. Fortunately I was able to grab an extra pillow from an empty seat nearby.
Also waiting at my seat was an amenity kit, with products from ACCA KAPPA. There was body lotion, lip balm, socks, eyeshades, a dental kit, a comb, and some fragrance.
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Just a minute after settling in, the flight attendant who would be taking care of me, Fourth, introduced himself. Philippine Airlines proactively offers champagne as a pre-departure drink — Fourth showed up with a glass and a bottle of champagne, and poured it at my seat. That’s a cute touch!
A few minutes after that my dinner and breakfast order were already taken, including being asked what I want to drink with each meal. I always find this to be a bit of an overkill — it’s one thing if we’re talking about a short overnight flight where you want to maximize rest, but I really don’t know what I don’t to drink in 14 hours.
What made this flight pretty special is how empty it was in business class, even though it was packed in economy and premium economy. There were nine passengers in business class, and they all chose to sit in the first few rows. It was a bit surreal that I had the back half of the cabin all to myself.
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At around 4:10PM Captain Emmanuel introduced himself and his three co-pilots, informing us of our flight time of 14h30min, and our cruising altitude of 41, 000 feet. A few minutes later, Purser Eve added her welcome aboard.
As was the case on the last flight, both reminded us that Philippine Airlines is “the heart of the Filipino” (which they ever-so-slightly overplay).
At 4:20PM the main cabin door closed, and then five minutes later we began our pushback. At that point the safety video was screened (once again, proudly from “the heart of the Filipino):
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Not surprisingly, there were several Gulf carriers parked at the terminal, given the amount of traffic there is between the Philippines and the Middle East. There were 777s from Saudia, Etihad, and Kuwait.
We had quite a long taxi, and by 4:50PM we were cleared for takeoff. We had a long takeoff roll, and a gradual climb out.
I planned on working for much of the flight (since most of the flight was during US daytime business hours), so I went ahead and just purchased the unlimited pass for $40. That’s steep pricing, but not totally unreasonable with no data caps.
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A few minutes after that free Wi-Fi cards were distributed. Business class passengers get 100MB of free Wi-Fi. I didn’t realize this when I purchased the pass for Wi-Fi, though realistically I was planning on using significantly more than 100MB of Wi-Fi, so I guess it wasn’t a big deal one way or another.
I do find it interesting that the Wi-Fi pass talks about the way you can redeem your 100MB, including making a call to loved ones for over 10 minutes. Don’t most airlines ban talking on the phone through Wi-Fi?
The meal service was quick to get started after takeoff. There was a dinner service after takeoff, and then later in the flight you could order a hot snack and/or breakfast at your convenience.
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25 minutes after takeoff I was served canapés, consisting of chorizo and shrimp. I had a glass of champagne, and they were serving Louis De Sacy Grand Cru.
About 35 minutes after takeoff tablecloths were brought out, and then five minutes after that the starter was served. Philippine Airlines serves the entire meal directly on your tray, rather than bringing out a tray, which is a nice touch.
There were two appetizers to choose from, and I selected the laswa soup, with shrimp-flavored consommé with local vegetables. I was also offered a selection of bread from the breadbasket.
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There were four main course options, and I selected the coco cream prawns in fresh turmeric sauce, stewed prawns in coconut milk with fresh turmeric served with sautéed kailan and crab fat fried rice.
Dessert was served about 10 minutes later, and I selected the yogurt cheesecake with milk crumble and creme anglaise, which was very good.
Service throughout the meal was friendly and efficient, and my tray was cleared about 90 minutes after takeoff. As the meal finished up I was treated to a beautiful sunset out the window.
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There were two lavatories in front of the cabin and two behind the cabin, and they were pretty standard for the A350, and didn’t have any special amenities.
At this point we had about 13 hours remaining to Toronto, and I was happy that I slept really well. I woke up just over seven hours before landing in Toronto, so I got nearly six hours of sleep. Even though there were no individual air nozzles, the cabin was kept at a reasonable temperature.
Upon waking up I tried to connect to the Wi-Fi, but was having issues. There was no connection. I figured we might have been in a region where Wi-Fi sometimes cuts out, though long story short Wi-Fi didn’t work for the entire remainder of the flight.
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Of course it’s possible something was truly broken, though I question if they even bothered trying to restart it. I spent most of the flight just editing and resizing pictures from the trip, which didn’t require Wi-Fi.
I ordered a cappuccino, which was tasty and beautifully presented on a tray, with a chocolate. The crew wasn’t proactive with service between meals, but when a call button was pushed they’d appear pretty quickly.
I decided to order a hot snack from the menu at this point. I ordered the Thai prawn cakes with pad thai, consisting of fried minced prawn cakes in sweet chilli sauce served with bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, and pad thai. This was served with a side of fruit.
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Unfortunately the dish was lousy — it wasn’t hot, the fish cakes were hard, there was just way too much sauce on it, and the flavor was off.
There was also a snack basket that the crew passed through the cabin with at some point, and I took one of the chocolates (as if I hadn’t had enough).
After working for hours on end I decided to watch an episode of “Say Yes To The Dress: Asia” which was so much better than other versions, in my
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