SEAir expanding fleet

MANILA, Philippines–Southeast Asian Airlines (SEAir) expects its budget airline operations to soar in 2012 as it rapidly expands its fleet of jets to mount more domestic and international flights.

The Civil Aeronautics Board has approved the plan of SEAir to spin off its “leisure” operations, made up of flights using turbo propeller planes to special destinations. This is meant to distinguish the management of the different sides of the group’s operations.

“Those are two different cultures,” SEAir president and aviation industry veteran Avelino Zapanta said in an interview. “It’s no different from the Lucio Tan group separating its legacy operations from its budget carrier operations under AirPhil Express,” he said.

He said much of the group’s growth would come from its budget carrier business, now backed by Singapore’s Tiger Airways.

SEAir currently operates two Airbus A320 jets out of its hub in Clark Freeport, Pampanga. The company uses its jets for flights to Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau.

But the company’s main operations are its “leisure” flights using small planes to popular tourist destinations such as Caticlan, the gateway to Boracay, and the Batanes group of islands north of mainland Luzon. Airports in these destinations are too small for bigger planes.

Zapanta said SEAir expected to take delivery of two more Airbus jets by February or March next year. The planes are leased from Tiger Airways.

Zapanta said the new planes would be used for flights to China, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia.

“We are also adding new domestic destinations,” he said, other than the company’s planned flights to Cebu and Davao out of Clark.