France is hoping that flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) would consider a direct Manila-Paris flight in its plans to open a new route to Europe.<\/p>\n
French Ambassador to the Philippines Marie Fontanel said Wednesday a memorandum of understanding was signed between PAL and Paris-based airport operator A\u00e9roports de Paris (ADP) in June to explore the possibility of a nonstop flight.<\/p>\n
\u201c(I)t\u2019s more in the hand(s) of the Philippines Airlines to choose the hub that is more interesting for them to connect,\u201d Fontanel told reporters in an interview in Makati City.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can of course, as ambassador, [make a] plea in favor of choosing a direct flight destination to Paris because Paris is a very important hub in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paris, she said, would be a \u201cgood choice\u201d as France is part of the European Union and could serve as a \u201chub\u201d for tourists entering the Schengen area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know London is also one of the considerations and I understand perfectly why but knowing the United Kingdom is not EU anymore and Schengen, it\u2019s also good that you have a hub in EU, Europe\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Fontanel and Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco met on Dec. 5 and discussed a possible cooperation in the travel sector.<\/p>\n
The Department of Tourism said it is also lobbying for more direct flights to more European and commercially viable countries, including Paris.<\/p>\n
France is the Philippines\u2019 16th largest source of foreign travelers, with 46,472 arrivals recorded from January to November this year.<\/p>\n
Before the pandemic, French visitors to the Philippines reached 88,577 and France was the country\u2019s third largest market in Europe, next to the UK and Germany. (PNA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Philippines Airlines and A\u00e9roports de Paris are exploring the possibility of a direct Manila-Paris flight, opening up a new route to Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-society"],"pageone_source":{"pageone_source":"","author_name":"PAGEONE Online Network"},"_pageone_source":"","zyndk8_nxtgen_metadata":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dynamic-silver-sheep.82-197-71-20.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dynamic-silver-sheep.82-197-71-20.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dynamic-silver-sheep.82-197-71-20.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic-silver-sheep.82-197-71-20.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic-silver-sheep.82-197-71-20.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic-silver-sheep.82-197-71-20.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic-silver-sheep.82-197-71-20.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dynamic-silver-sheep.82-197-71-20.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic-silver-sheep.82-197-71-20.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic-silver-sheep.82-197-71-20.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}