Philippine Airlines (PAL), the country’s flag carrier, has denied claims made on social media that a PAL plane was reassigned to a presidential charter flight to Davos, Switzerland, and that this decision led to the cancellation of the Manila-Vancouver flight that was originally scheduled to depart on January 15, 2023.
The airline says that on Friday, January 13, 2023, a flight between Manila and Vancouver was canceled owing to an aircraft technical issue. The assigned aircraft, a Boeing 777-300ER with registry RP-C7773, is currently grounded for maintenance.
A replacement flight was scheduled for impacted customers, and options based on the Passenger Bill of Rights were provided.
PAL clarified that the chartered flight to Davos was catered on another Boeing 777 aircraft with a different registry number. The airline added that the cancellation of the Manila-Vancouver trip was not due to the charter agreements that had been established for this aircraft weeks before.
“We understand the inconvenience that the cancellation of a flight may cause and we apologize to our affected passengers,” said a PAL spokesperson Cielo Villaluna. “However, we would like to assure the public that the cancellation was not caused by any charter arrangements and that the safety and well-being of our passengers is always our top priority.”
Philippine Airlines flight PR-001, carrying Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.’s delegation to Switzerland, landed at Zurich Airport on Monday at 4:28 PM local time (11:28 PM PHT). RP-C7782, a Boeing 777 aircraft, operated the presidential flight.
RP-C7782 completed a flight from Los Angeles to Manila on January 12 before taking to the skies as PR-001 on January 15, according to data from global flight tracking service FlightRadar24.com.
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