Will Travelers Choose to Fly AirFrance On Its New Direct Manila-Paris Flight?

Direct flights between Paris and Manila are coming courtesy of AirFrance, which is resuming the route starting December this year. But whether travelers will choose this flight to get to Europe and prove the route to be profitable remains to be seen. 

A travel industry professional said many of their clients have gotten used to traveling between Asia and Europe through Middle Eastern or Asian carriers and whether they will opt to travel via this new AirFrance route will largely depend on the cost of the ticket.

“It’s very seldom for us to have clients that used KLM when they were the only European carrier left flying into the Philippines,” the source said. The Dutch airlines, which merged with Air France in 2004, still flies a weekly service between Amsterdam and Manila with a stopover in Taipei three times a week.

“Filipinos like Middle Eastern carriers, too, which connect to major European cities,” the source said. “It will all boil down to airfares.”

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According to France’s Ambassador to the Philippines and Micronesia Marie Fontanel, the AirFrance flights will start on December 7, 2024 and these are scheduled three times weekly. The carrier plans to use a 400-seat Airbus 350-900.

“This direct flight will be a game changer to boost our trade and commercial, tourism exchanges with the Philippines,” Fontanel said during a news briefing.

During a separate press conference, Air France-KLM General Manager for Southeast Asia and Oceania Femke Kroese said the flight time between Paris and Manila will be approximately 14 hours. The Manila to Paris flight will leave Manila starting December 8 at 9:50 pm and will arrive in Paris at 5:50 am.

“So you will be arriving very early in the City of Paris to have the full day to explore,” said Kroese. AirFrance will also offer competitive fares for the Filipino community to travel to Paris.

Round trip economy fares on the Manila and Paris flight costs roughly $1,438 (about P82,000) per person according to the KLM-AirFrance website. Meanwhile, a quick search for a flight for the same direct route on one of the popular Gulf States airlines on the same dates is around P62,000. This however, includes, a layover in a city in the Middle East.

The Department of Tourism (DOT) has said that it is confident about attracting more tourist arrivals to the country from Europe with the direct Paris-Manila service frm AirFrance. 

“Through this air route, we are eager to welcome more visitors from France and the European Union, who will discover and love the unique charm of our islands, the warmth of Filipino hospitality, and the richness of our culture and heritage,” DOT Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said. “We are optimistic that this will pave the way for further expansion of direct flights to other key European destinations in the near future.”

According to data from the DOT, 16,130 Filipinos traveled to France from January to July this year, although this number includes overseas Filipino workers. Estimates put the number of Filipinos living and working in France at around 200,000, although many of them are reportedly undocumented aliens. 

The DOT said it has always considered France an opportunity market, described as countries from which arrivals grow by at least 20 percent annually. Most French tourists go to El Nido, Bohol, Dumaguete, and Banaue. In 2019, there were 88,577 inbound tourists from France, but last year, there were just 51,601 arrivals. Total arrivals from EU in 2019 (minus the United Kingdom), reached roughly 431,000, with Germany topping the market at 103,756. 

As of September 10 this year, a total of 43,636 tourists from France visited the Philippines. This represents about 1.05 percent of the 4.15 million total international visitors for the period. French visitors ranked second after Germany (54,862). Total arrivals from the EU reached 264,721.

What about Philippine Airlines?

Meanwhile, Philippine Airlines said it is not planning to follow AirFrance’s lead anytime soon.

“Of course that’s still in the pipeline, however, due to supply chain issues and pending delivery of the planes, we’re still figuring out when’s the right time to do that,” PAL President and COO Capt. Stanley Ng said during an aviation forum recently.

In the 1980s, PAL operated so-called “Milk Run” flights between Manila and Paris. These flights stopped over several countries before the eventual destination but was still considered “nonstop” because PAL use the same plane for all the stops. The flag carrier stopped flying to Europe after the company experienced financial difficulties in 1998. PAL relaunched the Manila-Paris route on a code-share agreement that was later suspended with the merger of Air France and KLM. Save for code-share flights shared with Singapore Airlines via Singapore, PAL has not operated flights to Paris since.