Cebu Pacific set to return to profitability next year

Low-cost airline Cebu Pacific is hoping to return to profitability with the full restoration of its overall flight capacity amid the resurgence of air travel.

Cebu Pacific chief strategy officer Alex Reyes, in a recent event in Singapore, said they were eyeing to achieve a prepandemic level of flight capacity by next year.

“We have fully recovered for our domestic capacity,” Reyes said.

But its international route network, which currently operates at only half of the prepandemic level, has yet to be fully restored.

“We’re probably operating on half the capacity that we had on international before the pandemic struck. But it looks like it is coming back quite rapidly.Ph first half from just 1.2 million a year ago. Average fares were up 8.8 percent to P1,855 as of end-June, which also boosted the topline figures in this segment.

Revenues from the cargo segment climbed 26.8 percent to P3.57 billion in the first half from P2.82 billion a year ago.

Cebu Pacific is currently collecting Level 9 fuel surcharges, in line with the guidelines of the regulator.

At this level, passengers are charged P287 to P839 individually for domestic flights while fuel surcharge for international flights ranges from P947.39 to P7,044.27 each.

“Clearly, it helped in offsetting some of the additional costs,” he said, noting that fuel costs account for about half of the airline’s expenses.