I would just like to tell an interesting story on our trip to the Philippines.

I booked our flights at 4:30pm on Monday the 19th September, for a departure on Saturday the 24th September at 8:10am, so we were leaving about 4.5 days after I made the booking.

On Friday the 23rd September, I recieved an email from Philippine Airlines, saying  "We would like to inform you that there are changes to your upcoming flight from Melbourne (MEL) – Manila (MNL) due to adjustments in our flight operations", the flight number was changed from PR210 to PR5210 and depature time would be two hours later at 10:30am. I say to myself "No problem, that fine by me. An extra 2 hours before we were to leave", I just have rearrange our lift to Tullamarine on Saturday morning.

We get to the airport about 5 hours before departure (for some reason, our daughter was in a hurry to get us to the airport, then get back home), so we were very early. This turned out to be a good thing as...
1. I forgot my to bring walking stick, and this gave my wife time to see if she could buy one from a Chemist at the airport (which she did).
2. We had to go online and organise our COVID-19 vaccination certificates from Australia, and have the info passed on to Philippine Health, and they only told us at the check-in counter that we couldn't proceed without that being done! I reckon we should have been informed of this when we bought our tickets, but we weren't!

Eventually we check-in, and I get wheelchair assistance through Customs, and up to the Gate (Gate 20). We get there, and we're told to go to Gate 5 because that's where we are departing from. So the poor lady pushing the wheelchair turns me around, and back to Gate 5 we go. We get there, and we're told we are depoarting from Gate 7, not Gate 5, but no need to go there yet, we only need to go there when boarding starts. During this time, there aren't many passengers around for our flight (I counted about 20 people) - Just so you know, PR210 is using an A330-300, and PR5210 is using an A321(NEO?), so I figure that a small aircraft was needed due to less passengers than normal, but I couldn't figure out why the flight number was changeed as well. The aircraft was being refueled at Gate 20, and once that was done, then it was going to move to Gate 7 (I don't know the reason for this). Finally the aircraft parks at Gate 7, and about 15 minutes later we start boarding. I'm seated in an aisle seat as I requested, and my wife was supposed to be at the window seat next to me (on the A330-300 anyway as per our booking), but she is seated in the middle seat across the aisle from me (WHAT!). Finally everyone is on board and we take off and are on our way. Strangely, the aircraft looks almost empty! After we climb for a bit the Flight Attendants got out of their seats and started moving around. I ask her as she passes me "How many passengers are on this flight?", and she replies "27, but the aircraft has a maximum of 145". I'm shocked! Only 27 passengers!!! Wow. Before we even reached cruise altitude, the Flight Attendants closed all the bli8nds on the aircraft, and it was like a night flight. Can't think of a reason why they would do that, as the flight is about 8.5 hours, and the time difference between Melbourne and Manila was 2 hours (3 hours on the return because Daylight Savings started while we were in the Philippines).

It turns out that PR210 left at 8:10am, and due to weight discrepancies, a second flight was needed to take the remaining 27 passengers to Manila.

On the return flight (PR209) was also supposed to be an A330-300, but it turned out to be an A350-900, and every seat was filled. Some people were not seated with the ones they were supposed to be so before take off there was a lot of shuffling around of the passengers until every one was satisfied (I hope).