CEB to develop more air routes from Cebu

CEBU, Philippines - Publicly-listed Cebu Air Inc.,  sees tremendous growth in the domestic passenger market as it plans to add more flights out of Cebu in the next few months.

In its annual Stockholders Meeting held in Cebu, CEB chief financial officer Jaime Cabangis said that the airline company is going to develop air transportation links from Cebu to small cities within the Philippines, as well as the tourism leisure island destinations.

For the second quarter this year, CEB registered a domestic passenger growth (out of Cebu) of 20 percent.

The Gokongwei-led airlines, which recently acquired Tiger Air, has a total of 23 routes out of Cebu for domestic destination, and six international direct flights from Cebu.

Trina E. Asuncion, CEB director for corporate finance and investor relations, reported to stockholders the company's performance in 2013, highlighting the airline's dominance in the domestic airline market share.

In 2013, CEB garnered 50 percent of the country's domestic air travel share. This year in the second quarter its share went up to 61.1 percent due to acquisition of Tiger Air.

With 50.4 percent domestic market share and 16.3 percent international market share the airline garnered P41.0 billion in revenues, up by 8.2 percent year-on-year.

"We bolstered our network further by adding new domestic routes such as Cebu-Camiguin-Cebu and Manila-Surigao-Manila, as well as new international destinations such as Bali and Phuket," said Lance Y. Gokongwei in a statement to stockholders,

Cebu Pacific flew 14.4 million passengers in 2014, 8.3 percent more than the previous year. Passenger growth was split between 7.6 percent for domestic travel and 10.7 percent for international travel, both far ahead of industry growth statistic, Gokongwei said.

Based on the Civil Aeronautics Board statistics, the combined number of Philippine domestic and international passengers grew only by 0.9 percent to 37.66 million from 37.31 million in 2012.

The same date showed that domestic passenger traffic declined by 11 percent to 20.34 million from 20.57 million in 2012, while international passenger traffic was up by 3.5 percent to 17.32 million from 16.74 million in 2012.

According to Gokongwei, typhoon Yolanda and the earthquake that struck the Visayan region significantly affected air travel. While the Philippines economy achieved a 7.2 percent GDP growth, the country's peso depreciated from P41.05 at the end of 2012, to P44.495 at the end of 2013.

"These events, coupled with the continually high fuel cost and competitive pressures, tested the company's resilience, strength and commitment to profitable growth," Gokongwei told stockholder in his message.

CEB held its annual Stockholders Meeting in Cebu for the first as a compliance, as it registered its main and headquarter office in Cebu. (FREEMAN)