Ask how to fly privately around Palawan and two different answers come back, because two different aircraft can answer it. One has wheels and needs a runway; the other has floats and needs open water. Both are real, bookable options for the same kind of trip, and neither is a substitute for the other so much as a different tool for a different version of the same journey.
Avian books the wheeled aircraft: a Cessna 182 flown on priced routes between Palawan's airports. Horizon Sun Charters, based in Puerto Princesa, flies the other: a DHC-2 Beaver seaplane, describing itself as the first and only seaplane operator working in the province. What follows sets the two side by side on the things that actually decide which one suits a given trip — where each lands, how many people it carries, what happens to luggage, how weather affects each, and how the price works.
Two different aircraft, two different ideas
The difference starts with what each aircraft is built to land on. A wheeled aircraft needs pavement, which is why Palawan's airports exist where they do: Puerto Princesa International near the city centre, El Nido Airport at Lio a few kilometres north of town, Francisco B. Reyes Airport on Busuanga for Coron, San Vicente Airport minutes from Long Beach, and Cuyo Airport out on Cuyo Island. A Cessna 182 flying for Avian moves between those five points, and its price and schedule are built around them.
A seaplane is built around water instead, so its "airport" is wherever there is a bay or a pier willing to receive it. Horizon Sun's Beaver serves El Nido, Coron, Balabac, Taytay, Port Barton and Puerto Princesa on that basis, landing on the water itself rather than taxiing up to a terminal. Neither approach is more capable than the other in general — each is simply matched to a different kind of landing site, which is the question the next section actually answers.
Where you land
A wheeled charter always ends at one of the five airports above, with a short road transfer from there to wherever you are actually staying. El Nido Airport is a few kilometres from El Nido town and the Lio resorts; Coron's airport is 30 to 45 minutes by road from Coron town on Busuanga; Puerto Princesa's is close to the city centre. That transfer is straightforward everywhere on the network, because every one of those airports already has a road running to it.
A seaplane skips that transfer entirely when the destination is on the water. Horizon Sun describes landing at resort piers and bays rather than at an airstrip, which means a resort with its own waterfront can, in principle, be the actual endpoint of the flight rather than a drive away from one. That favours the properties built around a pier or a bay; a resort with no direct water access, or a stay based in a town centre rather than at a waterfront resort, gets no particular benefit from a water landing over an airport one.
How many of you
The Cessna 182 Avian books carries up to three passengers per aircraft; the Beaver carries up to six. For one, two or three people, that difference does not usually decide anything — either aircraft can carry the group, and the choice comes down to where you are actually landing. For four to six people travelling together, it does: a wheeled charter needs two Cessnas flying together to keep the group on one schedule, coordinated as two separate aircraft, while a Beaver can carry all six on a single trip.
Neither answer is wrong for a larger group — two Cessnas and one seaplane are simply two different ways of moving the same six people, with different landing sites and a different way the price gets built. A group deciding between them is really deciding between the answers to the sections that follow, not the seat count on its own.
Worth noting too: two Cessnas flying the same group are two separate aircraft, so keeping them on the same schedule is a question to raise explicitly when you request the flights, rather than something that happens on its own. A single Beaver carrying all six removes that question entirely, at the cost of the seat count being fixed by whichever aircraft the operator sends.
Luggage
Avian's price cards state the aircraft's total luggage allowance in kilograms alongside the fare, so a Cessna 182 charter shows its own limit for the whole aircraft before you book. That figure is there specifically so bulkier items — dive gear, a board bag, camera cases — can be weighed against it in advance; if something unusual is coming along, mention it when you book and the operator will confirm it fits.
The seaplane's luggage allowance is not among the facts we can state here. If luggage volume matters to your trip — dive gear again being the obvious case on a Palawan itinerary — that is a question to put to the operator directly when you request the quote, rather than something either of us can size up for you ahead of time.
Weather
Both aircraft fly under visual conditions, which is the ordinary way light aircraft operate in the Philippines: the crew needs to see the terrain and the weather ahead, not just fly on instruments through it. That means cloud base and visibility can move a departure time for either aircraft, seaplane or wheeled.
A water landing adds one more variable that a runway does not have: sea state. Calm water at a bay or pier is part of what makes a landing there workable on a given day, in a way that a paved runway does not depend on the water beneath it at all. On an Avian charter, a weather hold changes the time of the flight rather than the price: the operator proposes a new time, which you accept or decline from your booking link, and a flight that cannot operate is not charged. Ask an operator directly how they handle a hold before you rely on a tight connection either way.
Price
Here the two are simply built differently. Every Avian route, including Puerto Princesa to El Nido and El Nido to Coron, shows a live price for the whole aircraft, in pesos and dollars, before you request anything. We wrote up how that price is built and what moves it in how much a private flight in Palawan costs.
Horizon Sun quotes per trip instead, direct from the operator, with no published price list to check ahead of a request. No figure for the seaplane appears here or anywhere on this site, because none is published — the only way to learn it is to ask them. That is not a judgment on either approach, just a real difference worth knowing before you decide which one to contact first: one answer you can see today, the other you learn by asking.
If a trip is genuinely open to either aircraft, the practical order is simple: check the wheeled price on the route page first, since it costs nothing to look at, then put the same itinerary to Horizon Sun and compare the two answers once both have actually named a number. Nothing about looking at one commits you to booking it.
The honest recommendation
Put the sections above together and the choice mostly comes down to where you are landing, how many of you are travelling, and whether you want the price in front of you before you ask.
| Choose the seaplane when… | Choose the plane when… |
|---|---|
| Your resort has its own pier or bay and no easy road access. | You are staying somewhere an airport already reaches by road. |
| Four to six of you want to travel on one aircraft. | You want to see the price before you request the flight. |
| A water landing near the resort itself matters more than a published fare. | Your route runs to San Vicente or Cuyo, which are not among Horizon Sun's listed destinations. |
Both rows can be true for the same trip: a family of five with a waterfront resort booked for one leg and a San Vicente side trip for another has a genuine reason to book both aircraft, on different legs, rather than picking one for the whole itinerary.
Neither aircraft is described here as safer, faster in general, or better value than the other — both are flown by licensed operators, both depend on visual flying conditions, and each wins on a different, specific thing: the plane on a published price and an airport with a road already running from it, the seaplane on landing at the water's edge and on carrying a larger group in one aircraft. Match the answer to where you are actually going and how many of you are going there, and the choice mostly makes itself.
Planning a route the wheeled network covers, start with the El Nido destination page for the airport facts and every priced leg touching it, then request a quote from Horizon Sun directly if a water landing at your resort is what the trip actually needs.