Cebu Pacific to launch flights beyond Asia

Budget carrier Cebu Pacific is set to spread its wings outside the Asia-Pacific region as it prepares to launch long-haul flights to destinations in Europe, the US, Australia and the Middle East next year.

The airline, owned by the Cebu-based Gokongwei family, announced on Tuesday its lease of eight Airbus A330-300 jets capable of 11-hour flights, which is more than double the four-hour range of the Airbus A320 that makes up most of the airline’s current fleet.

At a briefing, Cebu Pacific vice president for commercial planning Alex Reyes said the company’s expansion outside of the Asia-Pacific region would be to the routes popular with overseas Filipino workers. These include Saudi Arabia, Australia and Hawaii.

Cebu Pacific president Lance Gokongwei said, “There is a huge, under-served market out there,” referring to the Filipino diaspora that equates to about 10 percent of the country’s population.

Gokongwei said the high cost of air travel meant most overseas Filipino workers could only afford to return home every two or three years.

“But now, they will be able to come home three or four times a year,” he said.

Gokongwei said the expansion is aimed at encouraging more people to fly rather than luring passengers away from competitors.

“Cebu Pacific’s (aim is) not to grab market share but to stimulate markets,” he said.

Gokongwei said the airline was keen to tap the Middle East market, with 2.5 million Filipinos working there, and stressed that there were few direct flights from the Philippines to the region.

The farthest Cebu Pacific’s current fleet – comprising mainly A320 planes – is capable of flying is to destinations such as Beijing, which is about five hours from Manila.

But Gokongwei and other company officials emphasized no specific routes would be announced until regulatory approval was finalized.

Cebu Pacific’s new planes will allow the company to fly to most of Australia and the Middle East and to the borders of Eastern Europe. In North America, Cebu Pacific said its new planes would be able to mount direct flights to Hawaii. Direct flights to the mainland US, however, are impossible using the new planes.

“Cebu Pacific is stimulating the market and creating new demand, and all carriers are benefiting. We remove unnecessary costs and continue to find cost-saving measures so that we can pass on these savings to our passengers,” Reyes said.

Four of the new planes will arrive by the third quarter of next year, while the rest are scheduled for delivery before 2016.

The lease of eight Airbus A330s comes on top of Cebu Pacific’s orders last year for 23 Airbus A320 jets and 30 longer-haul Airbus A321neo jets. However, the first of the A321neo planes are not due to be delivered until 2017.

Gokongwei declined to say how much the lease of the eight new A330-300 planes would cost.

Cebu Pacific started flying in 1996, using low-cost fares on no-frills flights to attract passengers.

It has since passed national flag carrier Philippine Airlines to become the country’s No. 1 airline in terms of passenger numbers.