The ongoing surge of COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) has swamped Philippine Airlines (PAL) with passenger rebookings and cancellations, the flag carrier announced on Friday, Jan. 7.
Passengers rebook or cancel their flights because they have tested positive or are in precautionary isolation.
More Metro Manila residents have either tested positive or have been in close contact with suspected positive cases and are required to undergo quarantine isolation.
At the same time, many of PAL's frontline personnel in ticket offices, contact centers and other support teams are unable to report for work.
These results in longer wait times for calls to reservation hotlines, longer queues in ticket offices, and delays in handling transactions.
"Our PAL teams are doing all possible to process all passenger requests, unclog any bottlenecks and serve you the best we can," according to the flag carrier's statement. "We request your understanding and cooperation as we cope with these serious but temporary challenges," it added.
Instead of calling PAL customer hotlines or visiting its ticket offices, which are unable to accommodate the very high volume of calls and requests, passengers should use MyPAL Request Hub (https://bit.ly/MPRHPAL) for rebooking requests, queries and ticket transactions.
The customer hotline and ticket offices are reserved for the most urgent calls and transactions related to travel within the next seven days.
PAL also urged passengers to consider deferring less urgent rebooking transactions until after the ongoing surge in cases and the current Alert Level 3 period in Metro Manila.
If they purchased their ticket through a travel agent, they should deal directly with their agent for any rebooking or ticketing transaction needs.
PAL's Metro Manila city ticket offices will be open only five days a week, from Mondays to Fridays, 9 AM to 5 PM, effective Jan. 8 to 31.
PAL pledged "to sustain as many flights as possible under these new circumstances, but some cancellations or schedule adjustments are likely".
Passengers should check their flight status and stay updated on changes in travel requirements by checking the website of the concerned provincial local government or destination country.