MANILA -- Philippine Airlines (PAL) expects earnings to return to pre-pandemic levels by 2025, its president and COO Captain Stanley Ng said Wednesday.

"It should be around 2025, when we--as the news came out already, we ordered new Airbus 350-1000s, that should be an addition to our fleet, and possible replace some of the older fleet as well," Ng said when asked when the company expects earnings to return to pre-COVID levels.

On its website, PAL said it has finalized a purchase agreement to buy nine A350-1000 long range aircraft to fly non-stop services from Manila to North America.

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The executive said the company hasn't returned to pre-pandemic operation levels because they had to reduce their fleet during the pandemic to cut costs.

"Pre-pandemic we (had) almost a hundred planes, we reduced around almost 30 percent of our fleet that time."

Ng noted, however, that the company has seen strong recovery since the second half of 2022.

"Since the second half of last year, we’ve seen significant recovery. Like the passenger demand is growing stronger than ever, and initially we expected some slowdown, this year, early. However, it didn’t happen," he said.

"So we have extended some of the leases that we can. And try to bring, reactivate some of the planes to actually cover the demand today," he noted.

Ng says they now have 76 airplanes in their fleet.

He also said they are expecting increased profits in 2023.

"(In) only the first half of this year, we already exceeded the net income of last year," he said.

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