Cebu Pacific passes Philippine Airlines by 1.2 million domestic pax

Cebu Pacific stated it handled more passengers in 1H2010 than Philippines Airlines, with 4.1 million domestic passengers compared to 2.9 million for Philippines Airlines. The carrier has a 48.8% share in the domestic market (Manila Bulletin, 03-Sep-2010). The carrier added that it plans to handle 10 million passengers in 2010, commenting it "remains on track" to reaching this target. The carrier added that traffic from Hong Kong has "recovered quite strongly" after the hostage incident in Manila, but added that the LCC felt the initial impact of the hostage crisis in terms of cancellations, especially from services out of China. Cebu Pacific expects the Chinese market to recover in the next few months. Services from Hong Kong and China represent 12-13% of the airline's total revenues. Meanwhile, the carrier announced a 50% seat sale to any of its 33 domestic and 16 international destinations from 04-05-Sep-2010, for travel between 01-Oct-2010 and 30-Nov-2010.

Cebu Pacific: "We hope to carry even more passengers as we expect delivery of four more brand-new Airbus aircraft from October 2010 to January 2011. Twenty more brand-new Airbus aircraft will be delivered until 2014. We will use all these to add more frequencies, routes and flights to lower our fares even further and provide even more travel convenience to guests," Candice Iyog, VP for Marketing and Distribution. Source: Manila Bulletin, 03-Sep-2010.