[Anonymous]

[CalvinSerrano]

Manila-SFO was flown by RP-7473. This aircraft was supposed to be an ex-kuwait airlines so there was a lot of Arabic written everywhere. That was the first thing I noticed about the plane. The plane was delayed for about 4 hours because of weather in Manila. Thank god SFO had free wifi and I was in a Mabuhay Lounge.

The flight was pretty full, considering it is peak season to travel to Manila. And the tourism gimmick, “Its more fun in the Philippines” has just started. The flight started of well, inflight IFE was working, and watched a few TV shows before I went to bed. Considering that we took off at 3 AM and I arrived SFO at 3 PM, I was pretty tired. The sleep went well, the pillow was comfy, and the blanket was warm. Probably the warmest economy blanket I have slept in. I woke up and there was dinner. Dinner was caldereta (filipino beef) and it was delish. I honestly thought it could have been cooked better, since I have tried foods from Cathay and Korean that was grand.

The service was good, but the restrooms were really dirty. PAL restrooms are known to be dirty, especially in their 747s and A340s. They had amenities that I used after my meal like my toothbrush, and slippers. They announced that they will be selling stuff before we land, and that our duty free items would arrive soon.

I watched a couple movies to pass the time, and there was breakfast. Pork Loganeesa (Sausage) was served. It was decent, economy food. The fried rice could have been cooked better and the eggs tasted plain. But I was hungry so I ate all of it.

The IFE suddenly shut off due to an error in one of the passengers screen. It quickly turned back on, and I was disappointed it ruined my spot in Lincoln. These Thales systems are really slow when it comes to fast forwarding shows.

We were landing, and as promised, the flight attendants came and sold us stuff. I bought a model plane for my cousin.

Baggage was bad. It took about an hour for my bags to arrive. Its probably due to four international aircraft landing at the same exact time, and there are only 3 working baggage claims.

THE REVIEW: Philippine Airlines is slowly getting there. Its usually not the best airline to fly to Asia, but its growing. My flight was great. The delay was horrendous, but my flight arrived on time. The food was OK, and could be better. I honestly didn’t like that my screen was tilted the whole flight, but when the passengers’ seat was down, it was quickly fixed. The legroom was decent, and better than the legroom you can get on any Cebu Pacific flight. GET YOURSELF A MABUHAY MILES CARD FOR YOUR BAGGAGE TO COME FIRST. It really helps when flying to Manila.

[NameRemoved-18/12/14]

Just one question Calvin…did you not arrive in SFO before your departure time? If you took off at 3am, surely you would have arrived a couple of hours before on the same day. Or perhaps you mean 3pm Manila time?

[CalvinSerrano]

I arrived at SFO at 3PM from DEN. The SFO-GUM-MNL flight was supposed to depart at 8:30PM that same day, so I arrived at SFO at the right time. The flight got delayed because the SFO-GUM section of the flight was canceled and it was now just non-stop SFO-MNL.

It was a long 12 hours, but Philippine Airlines paid for all my food and services at the airport.

[CalvinSerrano]

My bad, I was misleading on the first 2 words of the review. The flight was SFO – Manila

[NameRemoved-18/12/14]

Thanks for clarification Calvin!

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