Philippine Airlines President and COO Stanley Ng said on Wednesday he was not that worried about competition as United Airlines announced it would launch its direct Manila to San Francisco flights in October, and in turn, become a direct competitor of the flag carrier.

Ng told ANC that the key to success is improving their services.

"For me personally, I'm not that worried. In the first place, I always tell my team...Anything that's a good business model, anyone can come in and copy or do exactly the same. But it's really the details and how you execute, and how you differentiate yourself from your competitor that's really going to make you successful," he said.

"Having said that, we've been trying to improve our products... all our planes, we're gonna have a program to refurbish. We're ordering new planes. We're gonna have a CRM system as well, which will start next week. So we will have a better view of what our customers need and want," he added.

United Airlines earlier said it would launch daily non-stop flights from Manila to San Francisco starting Oct. 30. The new flight will be the airline’s first-ever trans-Pacific service from Manila since the airline started its Manila operation in 1982, it said.

• PAL books P7.4 billion operating income in Q1
• United Airlines launches Manila-San Francisco flights