PHOTO COURTESY OF LAOAG CITY GOVERNMENT
LAOAG CITY, Ilocos Norte—The country’s flag carrier, Philippine Airlines (PAL), resumed more flights at the Laoag International Airport in Ilocos Norte province, the provincial government announced on Tuesday (March 29).
This comes as COVID-19 curbs have been eased while the province is currently under Alert Level 1, allowing returning residents and tourists to visit the province conveniently, the Ilocos Norte tourism office (INTO) said.
Effective last March 27, there would be daily available flights at the Laoag International Airport (LIA) for the Manila-Laoag and Laoag-Manila routes.
Previously, PAL ramped up the number of its flights from twice a week for the same routes to five flights in the last week of February.
LIA is the only airport in the province and is considered to be the “northernmost international airport in the country.” It has been a popular charter flight destination for tourists coming from China before the pandemic.
The airport was recently upgraded to Level 9, which permitted a wide-body Airbus A330 to land on its newly refurbished runway.
The improvements done by the Department of Transportation and the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines at the airport have also allowed it to increase its passenger capacity.
LIA can now service over 200 international passengers and 240 domestic passengers. Previously, only 140 international and domestic passengers could be accommodated at the airport, the management said.
LIA had noted an uptick in demand for direct and returning international flights to the capital city from places like Hong Kong, China, and Honolulu, Hawaii.
The reopening of LIA was seen by local officials as a way to fast-track the province’s economic and tourism recovery, two sectors that had been battered because of the hard COVID-19 lockdowns imposed in previous months.