I Tried Philippine’s BEST AIRLINE in ECONOMY! (Manila to Fukuoka)

Today, I’m taking you onboard Philippine’s National Airline,
on this mid-haul flight from Manila to Fukuoka on their backbone aircraft, the Airbus A321-200.
We’ll see exactly how it’s like travelling on Philippine Airlines in economy class.
Would I recommend travelling with Philippine Airlines?
Stay till the end to find out!

All prices in this video are in SGD

#philippineairlines #manila #economyclass

Music:
Music by Joakim Karud https://www.youtube.com/@JoakimKarud
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About us:
Welcome to Short Transit! We are a small group of passionate travelers based in Singapore. From our tiny red dot, we aim to bring you along on journeys around the world, mainly focusing on Asian travel. Stay tuned for more detailed and informative trip reviews like this one. If you really like our videos and would like to help us grow, do give us a like and subscribe to our channel! Thank You!

A year ago, I was searching for flights  to Japan in December 2022, and I noticed that something interesting. 2 weeks before I was  due to go, airlines were charging outrageous prices on flights to major Japanese cities, and I desperately needed to get myself there at the lowest cost possible.

Seemingly out of nowhere,  I accidentally stumbled on a $320 one way flight   from Kuala Lumpur to Fukuoka on Skyscanner with a 17 hour transit, and I immediately booked it.   More specifically, I’ll be flying on Philippine Airlines in economy class.

I’ll take you along on the 2nd leg of this journey from Manila to Fukuoka. Glad that you’re joining me today, so let me transport you back to Manila’s  International Airport where this journey begins. Well a very good morning from Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2.

Terminal 2 at Manila’s International Airport was the main home for Philippine Airlines until June 2023, when they relocated to Terminal 1 next door. Currently, only Philippine Airlines domestic flights depart out of this terminal.   Completed in 1999, this bright and airy terminal was built due  to the increase in the number of passengers

Travelling in and out of Manila. The check-in area here at Terminal   The check-in area here at Terminal 2 is rather basic but clean, with only Philippine Airlines check-in counters,   as at the time of filming, only Philippine  Airlines flights depart out of this terminal. Security and Immigration  was surprisingly quick and  

It only took me 10 minutes to get to the airside. The airside here at Terminal 2 was  also pretty basic, with a couple of small shops and restaurants. Weirdly, my allocated gate was behind this locked door,   which was apparently the domestic section of the airport… Last time I checked,  

Fukuoka is not a place in the  Philippines.   They soon realised their mistake and shifted our flight to Gate  7, after this flight departs for Haneda. Here at the gate is RP-C9926,   a 2016 built Airbus A321-200 that will  bring us to The land of the rising sun.

Boarding was surprisingly called a  few minutes earlier than the stated boarding time. Let’s get down the jet  bridge and board our aircraft shall we. Stepping on board, we can see that our aircraft is laid out in a 2-2 layout for business class with 12 seats,

Behind that is the premium economy  section with 3 rows in a 3-3 configuration,   and finally there are 169 standard economy seats in the typical 3-3 configuration, with a total of 199 seats. I was greeted by the  friendly cabin crew as I made my way to my seat.

This is my seat for today, seat 69K,  with a decently sized Pillow on my seat.  First impressions, the leather seats look  really clean and are quite well maintained,   but they are very basic. We’ll explore  our seats a bit later in the video.

The boarding process soon completed, and we pushed back from our gate.   After passing various  Philippine Airlines aircraft,   we made a quick taxi to runway 06 for takeoff. Ok now a bit of information about  this route that we are flying today.   Philippine Airlines flies once daily from  Manila to Fukuoka using Airbus A321s.

The only other direct competitor on this  route is budget airline Cebu Pacific,   flying once daily as well. Fares are pretty  steep if you are originating out of Manila,   with one-way fares starting at $380 and round trip fares starting at a slightly more reasonable $460,  

While competitor Cebu Pacific’s prices vary widely  from $290 all the way to $500 round trip. This   represents poor value for money for passengers originating out of Manila, given that my ticket   only costs $320 from Kuala Lumpur to all the way to Fukuoka via Manila in peak December season. Let’s enjoy this takeoff from Runway 06.

Flying time from up north to Fukuoka today will   be about 3 hours and 15 minutes  covering a distance of 1438 miles. My seat in this Airbus A321 comes with  30 inches of pitch, which felt tighter   than expected for me who stands at 1.8 metres tall. Definitely tolerable for a 3-hour flight,  

Definitely tolerable for a 3-hour flight, but nothing more than that. The seat pocket contains just a Safety Card, and nothing else.   0:04:55.320,1193:02:47.295 There’s also a fairly standard tray table  that folds down from the seat. There were no personal IFE screens onboard this aircraft, but they do have streaming entertainment onboard,  

Which we will explore in a bit. This seat  comes with individual air vents, something that I really appreciate. It is a feature that is absent in a significant number of aircraft nowadays. Entertainment onboard this aircraft is streamed to your personal device through the myPAL app,  

Which has to be downloaded before the flight. There’s an interactive flight map available,   and there are some movies and TV  shows on this flight.   Not many, but definitely sufficient for a 3 hour flight. A small kids selection and music is available too.

For lunch, we were given a choice of  chicken and rice or beef with pasta. I went with the beef option. The main course comes with a salad, a bread roll and butter, as well as this small pack of chocolate. The pasta was a bit on the dry side with not much flavour,  

While the black pepper beef was quite  flavourful. For my drink of choice,   I went with a cup of apple juice. All in all, this was a pretty decent meal for a flight this length. Shortly after clearing our food trays, the  cabin crew requested for the window shades  

To be lowered, and they dimmed  the cabin lights for passengers to rest. The cabin crew also distributed  blankets for those who needed it.    I took the opportunity to stretch out along my row of empty seats and had a quick nap,  

During this period, the cabin crew did go down the aisle with beverages during this period to keep us all hydrated. I got myself  another serving of apple juice. With the Japanese countryside  in view, it’s time to give my thoughts on Philippine Airlines. To sum up, for a full service airline,

Philippine Airlines did a pretty good  job in terms of the soft product,   with decent food and drinks as expected for a full service airline, along with friendly cabin crew on board. Concerning the hard product on these non neo A321 workhorses, it left quite a lot to be desired.

The seat, despite being well maintained,  is very outdated when compared with other full service airlines in the region. Power ports and in-flight entertainment screens were unavailable,   and there weren’t any notable differences with the seats of low cost carriers apart from the winged headrest,

Even the legroom is similar too. There  seems to be no plans to retrofit these seats with   the additional features seen on the much nicer A321neos, so try to avoid these planes if you can. Now let’s enjoy this descent into Fukuoka airport.

Welcome to Fukuoka. It’s rather cloudy  outside, and it felt great to be back in Japan. Overall I’m generally quite happy with the  overall Philippine Airlines experience,   and I felt that the amount I paid was good value for money. I would recommend them if the price  

Is right, but I wouldn’t pay too much to fly with them, especially with the inferior hard product.  With a lot more competition  in 2024 compared with 2022,   there are much better options out there if  you shop around on sites like Skyscanner.

Thank you for joining me on this journey, do remember to like and subscribe, and click on   this video next to see how it’s like flying on Southeast Asia’s Best Airline. See you soon!