Seattle gets more direct flights to Manila
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Philippine Airlines is cranking up flights between Seattle and Manila just one year after launching the only direct link between the Philippines and the Pacific Northwest.
Why it matters: The increase underscores both travel demand and the importance of Seattle as a hub — for Filipino Americans visiting family, for business and trade, and as a gateway to the rest of the U.S., per the airline.
Driving the news: Starting in November, Philippine Airlines is expanding its Seattle–Manila service from three to five nonstop flights each week.
By the numbers: Washington is home to nearly 195,000 Filipinos — the state's second-largest Asian origin group, after Chinese Americans, per WSU Insider.
Catch up quick: Seattle has one of the oldest Filipino communities in the U.S., dating back to early 20th-century migration for cannery and farm labor.
- Filipino men began migrating to America after the U.S. took control of the Philippines in 1898, working in Alaska salmon canneries and West Coast fields even as other Asian immigration was barred, according to the University of Washington Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project.
- In 1933, Seattle-based "Alaskeros" — Filipino migrant workers who spent summers in Alaska's salmon canneries — formed the Cannery Workers' and Farm Laborers' Union Local 18257.
- The union president and local secretary of the first Filipino-led union in the U.S. were assassinated soon after, according to HistoryLink, but the union endured and still exists today as Region 37 of the Inlandboatmen's Union of the Pacific.
Plus: Local military bases shaped migration as well.
- Filipinos served in uniform and married American service members, settling in Seattle and Navy towns like Bremerton and anchoring multigenerational communities.
State of play: Seattle–Tacoma International Airport is in the middle of an international boom.
- The airport handled 52.6 million passengers in 2024, topping its pre-pandemic record. International travel rose 15% over 2019.
- New routes like Manila helped boost nonstop international services from 42 to 58, connecting Seattle to 36 nonstop destinations via 30 airlines, per the Port of Seattle.
The bottom line: From cannery union halls to Navy ships to nonstop flights, Seattle has long been a gateway for Filipinos — and PAL's expansion is the latest chapter in that story.