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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider PAL ready to carry vaccines directly from Europe, US to PH provinces

PAL ready to carry vaccines directly from Europe, US to PH provinces

Published Feb 6, 2021 10:41 pm

The Philippine Airlines (PAL) said it is up for bringing the vaccine from the continental sources in Europe and the United States to the key provinces in the country.

PAL President and CEO Gilbert Santamaria said on February 5, that they are ready to carry the vaccines from Spain to Cebu inVisayas and Davao in Mindanao.

“We can fly from Spain directly to Davao to bring the Moderna vaccines there. If it's Astrazeneca sourced out of Belgium, we can do the same,” Santamaria said. 

“That's our capability. We are the only airline in the Philippines with the ultra long-haul, wide-body aircraft,” he added.

The airlines, Santamaria furthered, can take whatever is shipped directly to Manila by the vaccine manufacturer. It will be broken down in bulk by the shipper, put in cold storage, and then sent around the country in a timely manner.

“We have multiple options for aircraft. We can take the medium wide-body, the A330s. We can take our narrow body A320/A321s. We can also take our turboprop,” he said.

He explained that they can take the cargo from Manila to a secondary airport or to an island destination that has an airport and from there, they will have to fly out using smaller aircraft.

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