Hello everyone! Just got in from Philippine Airlines new Vancouver to Las Vegas service. The flight was made on their spotless A340-300 aircraft, and I have to say overall it was a great flight.. BUT there are some points that anyone taking this route should be aware of.

Philippine Airlines, on this particular route, has no inflight video entertainment although if you have your own "airline style" headphones (or ones with those seat adapters) there is audio available.

There IS a meal service which was a salmon wrap going down and a chicken fahita coming back, both served with dessert and cookies & pop or juice.

This is definately better than what Alaska or Air Canada offer, and Alaska has no audio or video on their 737-700 flights to LAS or LAX... so PAL is a good value that way.

The one completely unexpected or unexplained factor though is there is no bar service. On a flight to/from Las Vegas this was a shock! Not that you NEED to drink on a flight, but most people appreciate it to loosen up nerves, or to start off a Vegas vacation. They should probably look at changing this PDQ.

Our flight to LAS left 1 hour late and arrived 40 minutes late back in YVR (due to congestion at LAS, not the airline's fault) The aircraft as mentioned before was spotless, the washrooms provide cologne and skin lotion in economy, and the seat pitch was good, tall people can stretch out. The cabin crew were quietly efficient and attractive, and the cockpit crew silently went about their business of flying the plane with a bare minimum of "from the flight deck" dialogue.

Security in LAS seemed very interested in Philippine Airlines and there were plenty (8!) checking over bags and "looking over" passengers at the small check-in counter. This is probably due to recent Philippine extremists in the news with confiscated explosives and so on... I guess the Philippines and Manila are on a "watch"list...and the Americans are being extra careful. This is not a bad thing though, more security the better!

Finally, it's worth pointing out one event. the woman in front of us, when faced with the meal placed before her stood up and started complaining that she "didn't want THAT!" she wanted cheese and crackers like Westjet offers and demanded of them why they didn't have such things on the plane, and why were there no choices?? The FA patiently explained they are catered this way and that's the way it's been set up due to the short flight time. The woman kept on going and going on about it.. and the FA finally got away from her with a smile and a promise to mention it to Head Office. Well, before you knew it the head pursur on the flight came over and extremely patiently and professionally explained things to her again.. even going so far as to show the woman menus with choices for the YVR Manila leg & thank the woman for her suggestions (WITHOUT sarcasm) as they as "fine tuning" their service with this new routing. Pretty darn impressive as I think any other domestic airline's FA's would have handled this difficult & rude passenger VERY differently.

Philippine Airlines have proven themselves capable and professional, and are sincerely trying to offer an excellent product to North Americans. And the best for last... they are offering this product at least $50 cheaper than the competition.