Cebu Pacific Strengthens Cebu Hub

Filipino budget carrier Cebu Pacific is to expand its domestic network from Mactan-Cebu International Airport thanks to the arrival of new Airbus A320 models into its fleet. The airline will add a three times weekly service to Kalibo from February 24, 2012 while additional flights will be introduced to existing destinations from February 8, 2012, including Manila (to eleven weekly flights), Boracay (four weekly), Dipolog (three weekly), Legazpi (four weekly), Pagadian (two weekly) and Siargao (weekly). It will also increase seat capacity from Cebu to Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo and General Santos by utilising Airbus A319s and A320s on these routes.

“Cebu Pacific is the largest airline operating in Cebu, and our passengers have the fastest access to key cities in the Philippines and Asia,” said Candice Iyog, Vice President for Marketing and Distribution, Cebu Pacific. The airline flew 2.56 million passengers in and out of its Cebu hub from January to November 2011, according to company statistics.

“With the addition of the Cebu - Kalibo route in February, Cebu Pacific offers flights to 20 domestic and four international (Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, Pusan) destinations from Cebu, greatly contributing to the access of foreign tourists to the Central Visayas area,” added Iyog. As the table above illustrates for the week commencing January 14, 2012, Cebu Pacific accounts for more than a third of the seat capacity from Mactan-Cebu International Airport with almost 300 weekly flights, a figure that will rise with its network expansion in February 2012.

Away from Cebu, the carrier has confirmed it will also introduce a four times weekly link between Iloilo and Cagayan de Oro from February 8, 2012. Cebu Pacific flew just under eleven million passengers during the first eleven months of 2011, up 14 per cent on the same period in 2010. It also succeeded in flying more than one million passengers in the months of April, May, October and November; a first for any Filipino carrier.

As the table below shows, Cebu Pacific is the largest carrier in the domestic Filipino market offering almost twice as many internal flights per week than its rivals and accounting for a 41.3 per cent share of the domestic capacity.