Seair eyes more international destinations

MANILA, Philippines –  Leisure airline Southeast Asian Airlines (Seair) is looking at other international destinations like Macau, Hong Kong and Bangkok as part of its expansion bid.

Seair president Avelino Zapanta said as early as January next year, they hope to operate their second aircraft to some of the points where they already have traffic lights.

“The reason why Seair is pushing for open skies is because we find it problematic to acquire additional points where we could operate. We are advocating for open skies so that we will be able to operate on all of the points, from Clark to Southeast and Northeast Asia, and in the next three years we hope to connect not only Northeast and Southeast Asian destinations but also our trunk-line domestic destinations so that the people of North and Central Luzon will also have all the transportation they need to go to other parts of the Philippines,” he said.

Seair launched last week its twice daily Clark-Singapore route, its first venture outside the Philippines.

In an interview with The STAR, Zapanta said that with their going international expansion, next year will be a very profitable year for the company as he expects more than 90 percent of revenues to come from overseas operations, and the rest from the domestic business.

For a number of years now, Seair has focused on so-called “exotic” or tourist destinations such as Boracay. “Soon, we will also be opening up flights to El Nido and Taytay in Palawan. We used to operate in these areas until we grounded the planes to have them modified,” Zapanta, a former president of Philippine Airlines, said.

Seair leases all its planes and does not plan to acquire jets. “About 85 percent of the airlines worldwide lease their planes because this is more economical. And the ones we lease are also brand new, contrary to the impression that lease means old planes,” Zapanta emphasized.

The company expects to end 2010 with a positive bottom line, albeit flat compared to the previous year. “Most airlines lost money in 2008 and 2009 and we are not excluded. And now we are recovering because the market has been growing,” he said.

Seair has seven turbo prop jets flying to domestic destinations and Zapanta said they will be using the same planes, specifically two Airbus A319s, to fly to Singapore.

He explained that Singapore was their first choice for their jet operations “because Singapore has renewed its character and is better than Hong Kong.”

It will also add to its current domestic routes small communities in the Philippines that are being developed into new tourist destinations. “Eventually, we will link the trunk station of domestic to regional like Cebu, Davao, Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro,” Zapanta said.

He said Seair was the first airline to locate in Clark and is the only one based there. “We intend to use Clark for our other future international flights,” he pointed out.

For his part, Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) president and CEO Victor Jose Luciano said they welcome this development because it will start the bigger operations of Seair with their first regional international flight.

Luciano said Seair’s Singapore operations at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport will further boost the airport’s development as it serves more passengers, especially overseas Filipino workers.

DMIA averages 11 flights per day provided by foreign and local budget carriers since 2003.

Zapanta said Seair leases two Airbus 319 aircraft, with a capacity of 144 seats, from its Singapore-based partner Tiger Airways.

President Aquino led last Dec. 7 the blessing of the Airbus A-319 at the Seair hangar inside the Clark Civil Aviation Complex.

“Using the new 144-seater aircraft and with our projected 90 percent load factor for the Singapore flight, Seair projects monthly passenger traffic in Clark to increase by more than 60 percent,” Zapanta said.

He said Seair will offer low-cost flights to its customers at DMIA and compete with other foreign and local budget carriers flying out of Clark.

Zapanta said Seair is eyeing more international flights that includes Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Korea and Japan to increase their presence in the Southeast Asian region by 2011. Two more Airbus A-319 aircraft are expected to be delivered by the first half of 2011.

He added that Internet flight bookings would be marketed through the website of Tiger Airways at www.tigerairways.com as well as Seair’s website at www.flyseair.com as part of their marketing arrangements.