Philippine Air Lines and the Douglas DC-6

Route of the Orient Star: The first Asian airline to fly across the Pacific Ocean

Founded in February 1941 by a group of Filipino businessmen led by Andres Soriano, Philippine Airlines is the oldest Asian airline still operating under its name. With a five year pause in operations due to the brutal Japanese occupation, PAL's postwar operations resumed with five DC-3 and 15 domestic destinations.

On 31 July 1946, PAL became the first Asian airline to cross the Pacific when it operated a series of DC-4 charter flights to repatriate US servicemen. Four stops and 41 hours were needed to connect Manila to San Francisco. Regular scheduled passenger services began in December of that year to San Francisco. Six months later, PAL became the first Southeast Asian airline to fly to Europe.

When Japan Airlines launched services in 1951, it was with a DC-3 leased from Philippine Air Lines.

PAL's first DC-6s began arriving in May 1948 and cut the Pacific crossing to 30 hours and only three stops to get to San Francisco. The increased capabilities of the DC-6 and later DC-6B allowed the airline to expand its European and trans-Pacific services. By the late 1950s, it was possible to fly from Mexico City to London on Philippine Air Lines via a multi-stop trip through Manila marketed as the "Route of the Orient Star". Intra-Orient services connected Manila to Tokyo, Okinawa, Taipei and Hong Kong.

The DC-6s were slowly phased out starting in 1962 with the arrival of the airline's first DC-8s.