MANILA, Philippines - Gokongwei-led low cost carriers Cebu Air Inc. (Cebu Pacific) and Tiger Airways Philippines booked double-digit passenger volume growth in the first eight months of the year amid the launch of new routes and the arrival of new aircraft.
Based on its latest operating statistics, Cebu Pacific and Tigerair Philippines flew 11.26 million passengers from January to August or 14.6 percent higher compared to the 9.83 million passengers in the same period last year.
The favorable performance could be attributed to the increase in the number of aircraft to 50 compared to a year-ago level of 46 resulting to a 13.7 percent increase in capacity to 13.34 million from 11.73 million.
This translated to a higher load factor of 84.4 percent for the January to August period versus 83.8 percent in the same period last year.
Likewise, the number of flights of the airlines owned by taipan John Gokongwei inched up by 5.2 percent to 81,838 in the first eight months of the year from 77,812 in the same period last year.
For the month of August alone, passengers carried by both airlines jumped 16.8 percent to 1.41 million this year from 1.21 million in the same month last year.
The number of flights went up by 10.6 percent to 10,705 from 9,682.
Jorenz Tañada, vice president for corporate affairs of Cebu Pacific, attributed the volume growth to the launching of new international routes particularly to Japan and Dubai.
“We attribute the growth in passenger volume in August to Cebu Pacific’s increased presence in key international markets including Japan and Dubai,” Tañada said.
Cebu Pacific and Tigerair made further progress on their interline agreement with the first interline flights available for sale on the Tigerair website from July 23 and available on the website of Cebu Pacific starting September.
The interline agreement between Cebu Pacific and Tiger Airways Singapore Holdings Ltd. created the biggest network of flights from the Philippines to the Asia Pacific region.