August 2, 2010 - Philippine Airlines (PAL) on Saturday had to apologize to its passengers as a result of many of their pilots walking off the job due to low wages.

The airline was forced to cancel a number of national and overseas flights, as the airline did not have an adequate number of flight crew to fly its Airbus A320 airplanes.  

Nearly a dozen pilots have walked off the job over the pass several weeks and have taken jobs with higher paying overseas air carriers.

The airline is unable to match those salaries offered by theses carriers to captains and copilots flying the Airbus A320.

"There has been disruption to our tourism efforts and to other aspects of the economy that would need their services. If this is not warranted, they lay themselves open with appropriate charges. Hopefully, we will be able to come up with a resolution so that the riding public is not inconvenienced and the economy does not suffer in what is an inter-company dispute," Aquino said. 

PAL spokesperson, Jonathan Gesmundo indicated that most of those pilots who resigned were newly hired pilots and that the pilots had given their resignation letters and then walked off the job. ?The A320 is the first jet a pilot flies after graduating from aviation school,? Said Gesmundo. Flights from Manila to Bacolod, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu and Hong Kong were canceled. The pilot walkout at this time does not appear to be connected to its pilots union. Although PAL?s unions have complained about the airline outsourcing jobs.   

Philippine Airlines, Inc. (abbreviated PAL), also known historically as Philippine Air Lines, is the national airline of the Philippines. 

The airline, headquartered in the Philippine National Bank Financial Center in Pasay City, was founded in 1941 and is the oldest commercial airline in Asia operating under its original name. Out of its hubs at Ninoy Aquino International Airport of Manila and Mactan-Cebu International Airport of Cebu City, Philippine Airlines serves nineteen destinations in the Philippines and twenty-four destinations in Southeast Asia, East Asia, Australia, Canada and the United States.  

Formerly one of the largest Asian airlines, PAL was severely affected by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. In what was believed to be one of the Philippines' biggest corporate failures, PAL was forced to downsize its international operations by completely cutting operations to Europe and eventually Southwest Asia, cutting virtually all domestic services excluding routes operated from Manila, reducing the size of its fleet and terminating the jobs of thousands of employees.  

The airline was placed under receivership in 1998, gradually restoring operations to many of the destinations it formerly serviced. PAL exited receivership in 2007 with ambitious plans to furthero its previously-serviced destinations, as well as diversify its fleet.