Rising European travelers keep airline traffic upbeat

The growing interest of European nationals, including Russians, in Cebu as a leisure destination, has helped Qatar Airways to register a good load factor performance, both in inbound and outbound traffic.

Qatar Airways' entry to Cebu in 2003 has opened up easy travel accessibility for European tourists to Cebu, this allowed expatriates, European and Russian and other international tourists connect to the 75 international destinations of Qatar Airways from Doha.

"About 70 percent to 80 percent of our inbound (to Cebu) passenger traffic are Europeans," said Mary Rose G. Macapagal, Qatar Airways district sales manager for Cebu and Southern Philippines.

Also, she said that the airline has noted an increasing number of Russians going to Cebu because of the easy access. Qatar Airways' non-stop, nine-hour Cebu-Doha route and vice-versa contribute to the increasing number of European tourists coming to Cebu.

In fact, this coming Holy Week, a number of Cebuano families have already booked for European tours, going to Paris and other destinations, including those taking cruise vacations.

The airline have noted a good number of Cebuanos taking the direct flight to Doha, to connect to the different destinations in Europe, most of them are for family vacation, pilgrimage tours, among others.

In the past, Cebu had difficulty in attracting the potential European tourists because of the transportation accessibility, "now we are also bringing in a good number of Russians going to Cebu," Macapagal added.

Despite the improving passenger traffic business, Macapagal said the airline has l no plans of adding its weekly frequency.

Qatar Airways-Cebu recently held an aircraft tour inviting different travel agencies in Cebu, to showcase the airlines' superb in-flight facilities and five-star service.

The aircraft used for this route is the Airbus A300-600, which can accommodate 224 passengers.

Latest record from the Department of Tourism (DOT-7) showed that European national arrivals to Cebu increased by 29.75 percent in 2006, compared to the previous year.

A total of 44,346 Europeans visited Cebu last year, a big jump from only 34,178 arrivals of Europeans to Cebu recorded in 2005.

A huge number of visitors from Europe came from the United Kingdom, followed closely by Germany, and Switzerland.

Cebu has become Qatar Airways 48th destination, in its three-times a week direct flight frequency.

Qatar Airways is one of the only four airlines in the world with five-star ranking for service and excellence awarded by Skytrax, the independent aviation industry monitoring agency.

The airline's fleets will more than double in size over the next 10 years to 110 aircraft. It also plans to acquire 60 of the new generation Airbus A350s and 20 Boeing 777s worth a total of US$15.2 billion.