Domestic airline passenger traffic hit record 20.57 M in 2012

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - Domestic airline passenger traffic rose by 9.6 percent to an all time high of 20.57 million in 2012, thanks to lower plane fares that encouraged more Filipinos to travel around the country by air.

The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) said today the expansion of passenger numbers came as the number of available seats on flights rose to 28.26 million, up 16 percent from the previous year's 24.34 million. This translated into an average load factor for local airlines of 72 percent.

Cebu Pacific, the country's biggest budget airline, led last year's domestic air travel, attracting 9.48 million passengers in 2012, up from 8.48 million the year before.

Flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) had 4.1 million passengers in 2012, down from 4.31 million in 2011. This came as PAL continued to transfer more of its domestic operations to sister firm and low cost carrier AirPhil Express, which had 4.45 million passengers in 2012, up from 3.7 million the year before.

Zest Airways, owned by juice drink magnate and banker Alfred Yao, posted a decline in passenger volume, carrying just 2.06 million people in 2012, down from 2.15 million the previous year. Southeast Asian Airlines (SEAir), partly owned by Singapore's Tiger Airways, carried 317,897 passengers in 2012, significantly higher than the 124,468 passengers recorded in 2011.

AirAsia (Philippines) Inc., which started operations in 2012, carried 158,519 domestic passengers.    

Early this week, the tourism department reported that the number of domestic tourists in 2012 reached a total of 37.5 million, higher than the government's 2016 target of 35.5 million.