Review of Philippine Airlines flight from Manila to New York in Economy

【 Time flies on a 15-hour flight 】

Hello and welcome to another FR!

This FR will cover the 2nd leg of my journey from Bangkok to New York via Manila. This flight, covering 13,712km (or 8520 miles), is one of the longest in the world. The eastbound leg takes over 15 hours with the return taking around 16 hours and 30 minutes. The flight was first flown in October 2018 and is operated using the A350-900. Along with the Manila-New York route, Philippine Airlines also flies to Toronto, which is around 30 minutes less than this flight. 

This is my first time flying transpacific and is something I've wanted to do for a long time. There's absolutely no reason for going to the USA - I'm essentially just flying Bangkok to London the 'long' (and very stupid) way, but since I found cheap flights across the Pacific… why not? (Well… apart from the million reasons). I should mention that I did plan a few days in New York, so it's not a complete waste of time, but it's still borderline insane that I'd willingly pay extra to do this 'for fun'. 

Anyways, speaking of price, I paid PHP23122 ($392, €333) for a single flying BKK-MNL-JFK, which is a really good considering the distance. For context, BKK to SFO/LAX was the same price. It also includes seat selection and checked luggage, however, I paid an extra PHP1157 ($20, €17) for what is marketed as a 'signature meal'… I have no idea what it is but it sounded interesting, so I got it. Let's find out if it's worth it. ;)

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

【 Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport 】

Locals refer to the airport as NAIA, which I find to be quite a cute name (for some reason)…

The drop-off area outside of Terminal 1. Terminal 1 is used mainly by Philippine Airlines for its international routes. Domestic routes depart out of T2 with most foreign carriers using T3. 

Terminal 1 is the oldest terminal, opened in 1982. 

The check-in area for US bound passengers. It looks pretty nice and modern, considering its age. 

Check-in went pretty smoothly. All passengers heading to the USA are required to put their checked luggage through the scanner, which takes 5 minutes or so. As I only had 1 checked luggage, the staff were very kind in allowing me to use the business class check-in counters so I didn't have to queue with all the families with 4-5 huge pieces of luggage, which saved me close to 15 minutes.

Security was also fast and smooth, and here's the tiny duty-free shop on the right. 

In complete contrast to the check-in area, the airside area is one of the smallest and saddest I've ever been to. It's so cramped it feels a bit claustrophobic - it's a miracle how they fit so many widebodies here.

Just look at how tight these planes are packed together! 

At the front is a Philippine Airlines Airbus A330-300 heading to Melbourne (MEL), with another Airbus A330-300 heading to Dubai (DXB) at the back. That Dubai flight is currently delayed by over 6 hours… ouch! 

There's a limited number of seats between all the shops. 

Departures for the day. Unlike most airports that order flights by departure time (or in the US/Canada, which annoyingly sorts alphabetically), Manila decided the best way to do it is by gate… why??? Maybe it's a frequent flier thing, but I tend to do a quick scan by departure time to find my flight… so when that didn't work, I got so confused I spent at least 30 seconds trying to figure out how it's ordered (until I realized there is no order to it). At least there are only 17 gates, so it's not too annoying. 

Due to its small size, there are only a very few options available for food. But, of course, there's always good old pizza. (Yes, another pizza shot… it's becoming a trend at this point…)

With around 90 minutes to boarding, let's head to the gate. 

Okay, so what happened after was one of the most maddening/infuriating things I've ever encountered at an airport. You have no idea how hard it was not to type the next part in caps lock…

As you know, flights to the USA require passengers to go through additional screening. It often means standing in a line for an agent to check your passport and visa again. This is pretty normal stuff. It's also normal for this process to take a while, which is why I went to the gate early. There were 2 queues, one for business and one for economy. It took around 30 minutes for me to reach the front (again, normal), which is when they told me that there was a separate queue for connecting passengers (I was, technically, connecting between BKK and JFK, it's just that my connection was 24 hours long and involved a hotel stay). The fact that this wasn't labeled ANYWHERE meant that I wasted 30 minutes in the wrong queue. It was impossible to see the queue for connecting passengers as it was completely hidden by the 'main' queue. The reason the connecting queue was so tiny was because 90% of the passengers in that queue got sent there after getting to the front of the wrong queue, like me. It's only the peeps that (clearly) have done this before that went straight to the connecting queue. 

Oh… and you know the REALLY infuriating part? The reason why there are 2 queues is that connecting passengers don't get their USA visa/ESTA checked until this point, whereas passengers starting in MNL get this step done during check-in. You get a sticker on your passport to show that your visa/ESTA was checked. Because I left the airport (and short-checked my bag to MNL), I passed through check-in and got this check done during check-in (like all the non-connecting people), meaning that the 2nd queue was COMPLETELY pointless. Yup, the agent for the first queue just saw that I was connecting and sent me straight to the other queue without checking my sticker. The 2nd agent saw my sticker and just sent me through without even looking at me.

I mean, I understand that I was one of the very few people who short-checked my bag. I can't really blame the first agent for not checking for a sticker (they were swamped with a huge queue). Although if the process was even remotely organized, they wouldn't have had a huge queue with a large portion of those people not even realizing they're wasting their time. The whole process was such a mess, I'm amazed they aren't dealing with a crowd of angry passengers every day. 

Anyway, here's the gate. 

【 The flight 】

The only reason why I'm not late after that debacle is that boarding is delayed by around 40 minutes.  

Photo of the seats. 

The IFE (which we'll look at later) and the tray table. 

On each seat is a pillow…

A blanket…

And a pair of headphones.

Legroom is also… average (for long haul). 

View out of the window. 

Pushback around an hour late with a Philippine Airlines Boeing 777-300ER arriving from Los Angeles (LAX).

Taxiing past Terminal 2.

And later past the Lufthansa Technik Philippines maintenance hangars. The company (a joint venture between the German Lufthansa Technik and Filipino MacroAsia Corporation) offers maintenance services to a large number of foreign airlines. Including British Airways (you see two of their A380s in the photo)…

And Emirates (you see one of their A380s on the right). As far as I'm aware, MNL doesn't get any scheduled A380s, so it's pretty weird seeing so many of them here. 

Takeoff!! Bye bye Asia!

Shortly after takeoff, the crew handed out amenity kits. It's got a dental kit, socks, and an eye mask.

And later on, a menu card was given too. They're very rare these days, so I was super surprised to get one on this flight. 

A very nice selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. I should mention that because I paid for the 'special' meals, I won't be getting anything from the menu. Still, it's nice to see what the normal options would've been.

And here's the hot meal. The crew handed out the 'signature meals' first before coming around for everyone else. 

Ignore the white box - they actually write your name on the paper. 

And here it is. There are no options for the signature meal, so you kinda just have to take whatever's given (I don't think you can see the menu when booking either). It is grilled chicken with rice and potatoes. Along with it is a coffee tart, a vegetable salad, a cup of water, a sponge cake, two pieces of dried mango (blue packet), and a bun with butter. 

The hot meal is really, really nice. However, what I find interesting is that it isn't better than the normal meals. Having glanced at my neighbor's choice, I could see that everything apart from the main is identical, and the main is the same quality (and quantity), just different. Honestly, the free meal would've been amazing for economy, especially considering the quality and portion size. 

Flying over Japan. This will be the last time we see land until North America. 

Before I go to sleep, let's have a look at the IFE. 

The screen is fast and responsive. There's a wide variety of Western films, as well as a small number of Filipino, Chinese, and Vietnamese (oddly) films. There's also an ok selection of TV shows and music. A kids' section is also available, although it looks like it's catered more to younger kids (like below 8). All in all, pretty average content-wise.

And as usual, a moving map is available. 

After that, I watched a film (can't remember what it was now…) and slept for 4-5 hours straight. I guess part of the reason why I love long hauls (unlike most people) is that I sleep really, really well in economy. 

Waking up in broad daylight over Alaska. There won't be a lot of outside shots as I try not to keep pulling the window shades up (and flashbang the people trying to sleep around me haha). 

Around an hour later, the crew came around with a mid-flight snack. Once again, I got my meal first. One annoying thing about getting the meal before everyone is that the drink trolley doesn't come around for ages. This means that you can either eat your meal without the drinks or wait 10+ minutes for the drinks to come.

And here it is. It's vermicelli with mushrooms and prawns. Along with it is a sweet… cheesy… wrap… thingy. I have no idea how to describe it haha. This is the only meal out of the three where it's definitely worth paying extra for. The wrap is extra (no one else got it), and I can see that the prawns and mushrooms make it higher quality than what you'd get normally. A very nice meal overall. 

And after another short sleep, here we are over Northern Canada. You can (just barely) see land down there. 

And now, let's have a look at the onboard Wi-Fi. 


Prices are below. Economy passengers get 10 MB of data for free and business class gets complimentary Wi-Fi.

Honestly, this flight's gone much faster than I was expecting. Between all the sleep (I must've gotten at least 6-7 hours) and watching films on the IFE, it felt more like a 12-hour flight than 15.

Over Eastern Canada now, with the sun starting to set.

Around 3 hours before landing, the crew came around with a wet wipe in preparation for… Breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? Does time even matter after you've been flying for over 12 hours (across the international date line)??

But anyway, here's the meal. 

(I had to, once again, blank out my name on the tray).

I guess this is technically breakfast? It's got sausages and omelets with potatoes and rice. Alongside the main, we have a bun, some fresh watermelon, and 2 tiny pieces of dried mango (honestly, what a waste of packaging for something so minuscule…). Once again, everything else apart from the main is identical to my neighbor's. It's a weird breakfast (I've never seen omelets and rice in the same meal before), but still very nice overall. 

Well and truly dark now somewhere around the Canada-US border. 

And finally, starting our descent into New York. 

The approach involved a 180° turn to land on JFK's runway 04R. It gave us a pretty good view of Long Beach. 

On final approach with Brooklyn in the distance.

Welcome to the USA! Parked next to an Asiana A350 about to pushback for Seoul (ICN). 

【 New York John F. Kennedy International Airport 】

Philippine Airlines uses Terminal 1.

Immigration took under 15 minutes as 70-80% of the people onboard were US citizens or green card holders. That's seriously impressive for the USA, as I normally expect a wait of over an hour (at least from my previous trip to Florida). Judging by the size of the US citizens' queue, that one probably was a 45-minute to 1-hour. 

The baggage reclaim area. I was done with immigration so quickly that I actually had to wait 30 minutes for my bag. 

And here's the tiny arrivals area.

 
I'll end this FR here. I'll be spending a few days here in New York before hopping on a transatlantic flight to London. Thanks for reading and see you there!!