PAL to suffer more losses

PAL to suffer more losses

MANILA (AFP): Losses will dog Philippine Airlines Inc. (PAL), which has embarked on an ambitious program, for the next two years, company officials were quoted as saying yesterday.

The BusinessWorld daily quoted PAL president Jose Antonio Garica as saying that "at the end of this year and next year, we still expect losses, probably more than what we posted last year."

Garcia said that in the third year, the airline might just break even.

PAL has suffered at least 10 billion pesos ($384 million) in cumulative losses over the last five years and had a 2.18-billion-peso net loss in the fiscal year to March 31, 1996. PAL's longstanding losses have been blamed on mismanagement, overstaffing, government regulations and unprofitable domestic routes that it is forced to service.