Cebu Pacific income soars 71% to P3.56B

Cebu Pacific Air, the country’s largest budget airline, said earnings surged by 71 percent in the first nine months of 2015 on higher passenger volume and lower oil prices.

In a stock exchange filing, Cebu Pacific said net income in the January to September period hit P3.56 billion, as revenues rose 9.9 percent to P42.26 billion. Most of these came from passenger revenues, which hit P32.13 billion, up 8.1 percent.

Cebu Pacific said passenger volume increased 9 percent to 13.65 million passengers as it added more planes and increased flights by about 9.8 percent.

Cebu Pacific said the gains came even as the average fare dipped 0.8 percent to P2,353 during the period in review.

New plane acquisitions include the wide-body Airbus A330, which was configured to house 400 all-economy class seats. Cebu Pacific’s aircraft increased to 55 as of end-September this year.

It added ancillary revenues also increased 18.3 percent to P7.64 billion during the nine-month period.

“Improved online bookings, together with a wider range of ancillary revenue products and services also contributed to the increase,” the carrier said.

Costs were also controlled as Cebu Pacific said operating expenses hit P35.22 billion, down 1 percent.

“The decrease is attributable to the substantial reduction in fuel costs incurred for the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2015 compared to the same period last year due to the sharp decline in global jet fuel prices,” Cebu Pacific said.

Its flying operations expenses fell 18.4 percent to P15.99 billion as aviation fuel prices declined 22.3 percent.