Airlines cancel flights to Caticlan, Kalibo

The government’s decision to close the holiday hot spot of Boracay for six months to make it environment friendly has prompted airlines to reduce flights to the island.

Cebu Pacific, the dominant domestic carrier, said it would cancel 14 daily round-trip flights to Caticlan and Kalibo, Boracay’s two main gateways, from April 26 to Oct. 25.

Philippine Airlines (PAL) said it would scale down services to the airports and add flights to other destinations.

Both PAL and Cebu Pacific offered customers full refunds or flights elsewhere, and said they would still operate a limited number of flights to Caticlan and Kalibo airports to serve residents, which number about 50,000.

Airlines offer around 1.2 million seats from Boracay’s Caticlan airport annually, nearly three-quarters from Manila, data from Aviation Consultants show.

“Cebu Pacific with some 323,000 odd seats a year from the island would be the largest carrier disrupted,” said John Grant, director of JG Aviation Consultants.