Originally Posted by
bluegreentravel
Considering that Filipino-American households have an average income of >USD100k (Pew Research/ US Census), I would not exactly consider them to be "budget" and "low income" travellers. The OFW profile in US/NY is different from those in other countries. Plus even assuming that the PR target market is highly price-sensitive, it is peculiar that PR offers zero cost savings and it remains to be much more expensive in Y than other options like OZ,BR, even CX (I don't think budget conscious traveller would mind the layover for the USD400-500 savings).
Would love to hear PR executives' detailed perspectives though for this hodge-podge of seat types: moving towards budget model in Y in 35K; but at the same time, moving away from budget model and refurbishing A321ceo and A330... The hardware inconsistency is insane. Too bad because I would be a loyal customer if not for this constant confusion.
Nonstop flights work towards PR advantage in terms of pricing. It's almost impossible to see one-stop services being priced higher than non-stop.
The population of Filipinos in America is huge. Compare that to the services we see for MNL-USA, it's quite a contrast. If the Filipinos are not budget then it doesn't explain how PR cannot launch many more direct services to the US even with their old planes. The customers simply went for other one-stop alternatives within East Asia because of how much PR charges with the poor services they provided. There are only 2 daily services on LAX-MNL and that alone tells you how underserved this route is in comparison to Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.
Also, this part may be a personal opinion: I do value UA (or DL when they launch) services as being more premium than PR except the price. Do you see something wrong here?