Hello from the United States, as I just flew Philippine Airlines’ brand new Airbus A350-1000 business class on the 11hr55min flight from Manila (MNL) to San Francisco (SFO). As I’ve already covered, my journey up until this point wasn’t particularly great, between the carrier’s rough A330 business class, and the bad Manila ground experience (sorry for sharing my experience, Darryl — it’s obviously my fault that this experience on the Delta of the Pacific has fallen short of a Skytrax 6-star journey!).
The A350-1000 is supposed to represent the new generation for Philippine Airlines, so how did the experience go? Let me share some initial thoughts, and soon I’ll have a full review.
I’m going to use a different format here than normal, so feel free to share your feedback. Basically, I feel like my initial thoughts posts have been getting too long in recent times, so I need to differentiate them a bit more from the actual reviews. Also, the internet’s attention span keeps getting shorter.
What I liked about Philippine Airlines’ A350 business class
Philippine Airlines’ new A350 business class represents a massive step up over the carrier’s old product. Here’s what I enjoyed about the experience:
- Comfortable Collins Aerospace Super Diamond suites with doors, among the better hard products out there (very similar to what you’ll find on the Etihad A350-1000)
- Good seat tech, including bluetooth audio, all the charging you could want (wireless, USB-A, USB-C, AC)
- Great bedding, including a thick mattress pad, a plush pillow, and a cozy blanket
- A pretty nice amenity kit, with L’Occitane products, along with slippers (though no pajamas)
- The price of the ticket, as Philippine Airlines undercuts the competition, so that has to be factored in
- Very efficient and friendly service, as the entire first meal was wrapped up within 75 minutes of takeoff (nice, given that the flight took off after 11PM)
- The food was nicely presented with beautiful tableware, and in terms of quality it was relatively good, but not amazing; as you’d expect, the Filipino dishes were better than the Western dishes
What I didn’t like about Philippine Airlines’ A350 business class
While there was a lot I enjoyed about Philippine Airlines’ A350 business class, there were also some areas for improvement:
- While the plane has Viasat Wi-Fi in theory, it just didn’t work at all the entire flight
- There are no individual air nozzles, though at least the cabin was kept at a cool temperature
- While the crew was friendly, I found it to be rather surface level, and they weren’t at all proactive in terms of refills, checking on passengers, etc., so it sort of lacked sincerity (the crew on my previous flight was better)
- The airline promotes on the menu how it offers cappuccinos on its A350s, but that’s just not offered, according to the crew; this is of course minor, but it’s frustrating when these kinds of inconsistencies exist, because they shouldn’t
- Admittedly this is personal, but I thought the wine selection wasn’t very good
- This is very minor, but speaks to a lack of quality testing — the lavatory lights on the cabin bulkhead that indicate whether or not a lavatory is occupied simply didn’t work, as they always showed as green (unoccupied), even when they were being used
Would I fly Philippine Airlines business class again?
Philippine Airlines’ new A350-1000 business class is a massive improvement over the carrier’s old product. Given Philippine Airlines’ competitive pricing, I’d absolutely fly with the airline again, if the price or schedule were right (though transiting Manila… ugh).
However, this definitely still isn’t quite a first tier airline in terms of the overall experience, especially when you consider the competition in Asia. But hey, value has to be factored in, so that’s fair enough.
Also, neither good nor bad, but I do have to mention this — the song that’s blasted in the cabin the second Philippine Airlines planes touch down is… a choice.
Bottom line
Philippine Airlines’ Airbus A350-1000 business class is a huge improvement over the carrier’s old business class, and this product is now finally competitive by global standards. Is it the world’s best business class? Absolutely not. But given the carrier’s pricing, it’s absolutely something worth considering, if you don’t mind the adventure of transiting Manila.
I feel like the airline could get some easy wins by fixing some of the obvious issues, like just not having functioning Wi-Fi.
What’s your take on Philippine Airlines’ A350 business class?
Is Philippine Airlines the first Full Service Carrier to go 10 across on the A350-1000 in economy?
French Bee & Air Caraïbes are more "lower cost" no frills carriers so they don't count here.
@ InceptionCat -- Yep!
Quite the contrast with the A330. This shows that Philippine Airlines doesn’t need to be Singapore Airlines to offer a compelling business class product. A good seat, comfortable bedding, friendly service, and an attractive fare get you most of the way. Now if they can get the Wi-Fi working and actually produce the cappuccino advertised on the menu, we may really be getting somewhere.
I think I like the format. But feels like it needs bold headings or something with categories if you are looking to streamline for internet attention spans.
Just curious if the WiFi was more of a Viasat issue than PAL? If you were able to connect to the network but then spotty to no internet connection once connected? Possibly something to do with one of the new Viasat satellites? The picture you included is...
I think I like the format. But feels like it needs bold headings or something with categories if you are looking to streamline for internet attention spans.
Just curious if the WiFi was more of a Viasat issue than PAL? If you were able to connect to the network but then spotty to no internet connection once connected? Possibly something to do with one of the new Viasat satellites? The picture you included is usually what I see when I connect to the network but before I log in to the airlines portal.
Obviously this is on the heels of your laptop not working at the lounge so who knows.
@ Peter_ -- It wasn't one of those situations where it just didn't work for part of the flight, but it was broken for the entire flight. I had heard reports that PAL is having issues with Wi-Fi on some of its new A350s. I'm not sure what's causing it, but this was separate from the general "spotty Viasat over the Pacific" issue. Anyone know what's actually going on?
I know one of your biggest gripes with them is that they provide creamer over milk for coffee. I think it's more of a Filipino thing where they prefer creamer over milk.
Their fifth freedom flights back in the day however were a real treat. Aside from Vancouver-New York, they also had Vancouver-Las Vegas on the A343 years prior.
@ Mike O. -- Those fifth freedom flights were fun! And this time around there was milk, so at least that wasn't an issue. :-)
I mean, now that you have two kids, it's probably time to graduate to just drinking your coffee black anyway :-)
I don't think PAL needs to become the best airline in the world, this is reasonably competitive.
MNL is not going to become some mega transit hub like TYO or ICN due to geography, when you overfly so much of East Asia.
Ahh, so it really does just come down to the hard product/literal seat. 2-2-2 A330? Nope. 1-2-1 A350? Yes. 777? Depends if they’ve upgraded the cabin. Am I getting this right?
Hard product is just so important. It’s why I don’t think it’s crazy for an AA 789P to challenge an SQ 359. It’s not like SQ ever had the very best hard product, although obviously light years better than that 2-2-2.
@ 1990_ -- I think it depends on the flight, and whether you're looking to sleep, how long you're onboard, etc. And contrary to what Darryl has tried to claim, let me point out that I haven't actually shared my overall thoughts on the A330 flight (since I'm just going to publish the review soon). My post was specific to the seats, since I found them to be so remarkably bad, that I thought they were worth their own discussion.
They’ll probably never be the best airline in Asia. But they are improving slowly and could become a decent airline.
Hi Ben. Apologies if a this is a stupid question but if the transfer process is so bad isn’t the easy workaround to just enter Philippines and either head to departures or just take an uber if heading to another terminal? I’ve done this before in places like São Paulo and has worked well for me
@ Sam -- Not a stupid question at all. Yes, if you're moving between terminals, that could make sense. However, in this case I was transiting within the same terminal.
Ben makes very good points. The airline has attractive ticket prices in business class so of course they cannot offer the best of the best. Though, some enhancements should be improved.
1. If the airline does not offer cappuccinos on their flights, then they should be taken off the menu.
2. WiFi issues at the lounge and onboard should be fixed.
3. Ben is right despite what others or rather what one other...
Ben makes very good points. The airline has attractive ticket prices in business class so of course they cannot offer the best of the best. Though, some enhancements should be improved.
1. If the airline does not offer cappuccinos on their flights, then they should be taken off the menu.
2. WiFi issues at the lounge and onboard should be fixed.
3. Ben is right despite what others or rather what one other says in regards to the boarding announcements. Having been at business class lounges of CI and CX they do not provide announcements to the level that Ben has described or more like a lack thereof. Also, their lounges are much better and I never had a problem finding a place to sit at any time of the day at their hub lounges.
Hi Ben, weren’t you going to fly PR118 to YYZ? That’s what your initial post (I’m Flying Philippine Airlines’ A330-300 & A350-1000)’s ticket reservation said — PR437 from NGO and PR118 to YYZ. Did you decide that you’d suffered enough of PR, so you would only fly it until SFO? ;)
Jokes apart, it’s a bit sad how PR is the only operator of the A350-1000 in Southeast Asia, where TG, SQ, MH and even...
Hi Ben, weren’t you going to fly PR118 to YYZ? That’s what your initial post (I’m Flying Philippine Airlines’ A330-300 & A350-1000)’s ticket reservation said — PR437 from NGO and PR118 to YYZ. Did you decide that you’d suffered enough of PR, so you would only fly it until SFO? ;)
Jokes apart, it’s a bit sad how PR is the only operator of the A350-1000 in Southeast Asia, where TG, SQ, MH and even VN — which all have an objectively better product and reputation — have not ordered the -1000. Moreover, most A350-1000 operators belong to Oneworld, and Philippine Airlines is going to join their ranks in the near future.
Too bad that the other new East Asian operator of the A350-1000 — Starlux — is most likely NOT going to join Oneworld at all. Its A35Ks are, as you’ve seen, a world apart in both product/service and livery (especially the two Airsorayama birds, B-58553 and B-58554). Good thing you paid $4.8k and flew JX all the way from LAX — even though you couldn’t experience the Huan Yu VIP Terminal at TPE.
Now, if only Cathay would stop vetoing that luxurious Taiwanese airline from joining the most A350-1000-heavy alliance… :(
@ Proximanova -- You're absolutely right, that was the plan. What happened is that I wrote about my plans hours after booking. A reader asked if I could also review the Patina Osaka, which would require adding an extra night. So I decided to do that, but the catch was that the only attractive Philippine Airlines fare the next day was to SFO instead of YYZ. Since it was within 24 hours of booking, I could easily rebook. :-)
I read that economy on the NEW A350s was going to be horrific. So business is getting better and economy will be a sardine can.