CLARK FIELD, Pampanga – Some 1.8 million Filipino workers in the Middle East can now save time, effort, and even cash in their next travel between their hometowns in Northern Luzon and their workplaces abroad.
The first twice-a-week chartered flight of Transglobal Airways with 160 passengers took off yesterday morning from the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) here to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Victor Jose Luciano, president and chief executive officer of the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC), said the inaugural flight made a technical stop in Dhaka, Bangladesh before proceeding to Fujairah in the UAE, only an hour from Dubai.
He said Transglobal Airways has invested some $10 million for such flights and is prepared to invest another $10 million for its expansion at the DMIA.
Luciano said Transglobal Airways is fielding its 160-seater MD-83 aircraft for its regular flights between Clark and Fujairah.
“This is a major development for the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos working in the Middle East, as most of them are either from Northern or Central Luzon,” Luciano said.
He said Transglobal Airways will fly every Monday and Wednesday between Clark and Fujairah. The airline’s charterer is Kang Pacific.
“This is a new beginning for DMIA as it links up for the first time with the Middle East to serve 1.8 million OFWs working there,” Luciano said.
“Our workers in the Middle East coming from Regions 1, 2 and 3 and the Cordilleras will be spared from the traffic, effort, time, and even expenses in traveling to Manila just to go back to their work in the Middle East, or vice versa,” he added.
Luciano said the Transglobal Airways flights here can also serve Filipino travelers going to Europe.
He said Transglobal Airways, a Clark-based airline owned by a Filipino, Taiwanese and a Korean group, plans to increase its flights to five weekly in the coming months.
He said the airline will purchase a Boeing 737, which will arrive by the end of this month, to ply the Bangkok-Clark route.
The DMIA has an average of 40 flights weekly. Foreign carriers here include Asiana Airlines, Tiger Airways, Air Asia, China Southern Airlines, and Deer Air, as well as local carriers Cebu Pacific, Asian Spirit, and Southeast Asian Airlines.