Philippine Airlines has launched nonstop flights between Chicago and Manila, giving O'Hare International Airport its longest passenger route and ending years of connecting itineraries for travelers moving between the two cities. The new service runs three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, linking O'Hare with Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
A First for Two Major Cities
According to the Chicago Tribune, the route marks the first nonstop connection between Chicago and the Philippine capital. That absence of direct service wasn't just a Chicago quirk — Aviation Week reported, citing Department of Transportation records, that there had never been scheduled nonstop service between the two cities before this launch. The same outlet found that roughly 118,200 passengers flew between Chicago and the Philippines in the 12 months through June 2025, and every one of them had to connect somewhere along the way.
Westbound flights depart Manila at 4:40 p.m. and arrive at O'Hare at 4:55 p.m. local time, a journey with a block time of 14 hours and 15 minutes, per a report from Simple Flying. In the other direction, new service flights depart O'Hare for Manila at 10:45 p.m. and touch down early the next morning. Simple Flying also reported that Airbus A350 aircraft will serve the route, and that Cirium scheduling data shows the thrice-weekly flights are set to run year-round, with a monthly peak of 14 departures in March 2027.
Longest Flight Out of O'Hare
The city of Chicago says the new route is the longest nonstop passenger flight operating out of O'Hare. That puts it in rare company: Simple Flying's review of Cirium data found O'Hare had seven routes longer than 6,000 nautical miles in 2025, with Cathay Pacific's Chicago-Hong Kong service previously holding the airport's distance record at 6,771 nautical miles. Aviation Week reported that the roughly 8,121-mile Manila-O'Hare route ranks as Philippine Airlines' third-longest route systemwide, and it brings the carrier's U.S. network to eight cities, five of them on the mainland, according to the same Simple Flying report.
Serving Chicago's Filipino Community
Chicago has a large Filipino community, a connection city officials pointed to in announcing the route, which Philippine Airlines launched according to a city news release. Mayor Brandon Johnson said the city's Filipino community has contributed tremendously to the city's historical fabric, and said the new service connects two world-class cities and strengthens Chicago's position as a center of Filipino-American culture. Pew Research Center's 2019 metropolitan-area comparison put Chicago's Filipino population at 145,000, while WBEZ reported that metro Chicago's broader Asian population reached an estimated 764,000 in 2024, nearly 80,000 more than in 2020, citing Census Bureau estimates.
Lucio C. Tan III, president and chief operating officer of PAL Holdings, Inc., said the new route would make travel between Chicago and the Philippines more direct and convenient. AeroTime described the Chicago launch as part of a broader push by Philippine Airlines to grow its trans-Pacific presence, a strategy that now spans most of the continental United States alongside its existing island and coastal gateways.
