As Cebu Pacific fights on, Lance recalls dad’s encouraging words

Cebu Pacific CEO Lance Gokongwei. AFP PHOTO / NOEL CELIS (file)

Armed with fresh funds to weather the COVID-19 pandemic, Cebu Pacific CEO Lance Gokongwei said lessons learned from his father, the late industrialist John Gokongwei Jr., might have influenced their survival blueprint.

On Monday, Cebu Pacific operator Cebu Air Inc. listed shares following a P12.5-billion offer to investors amid the worst crisis facing airlines in the Philippines and overseas in generations. Thanking the company’s shareholders for their support, Gokongwei said the successful share sale brought to mind the words once said by his father, a self-made billionaire who established consumer, property and airline conglomerate JG Summit Holdings.

“Success is not necessarily about connections, or cutting corners, or tsamba [luck],” said Gokongwei, who is part of the family’s second generation of leaders.

“Success can be achieved through hard work, frugality, integrity, responsiveness to change, and most of all, boldness to dream,” he added.

The listing on Monday follows the sale of preferred shares that can be later on converted to common shares of Cebu Air, which is listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Cebu Pacific, which posted heavy financial losses last year, turned to its shareholders for aid amid the global health crisis.

The money raised from the sale will be used to pay back debts, aircraft leases and also passenger refunds as flights were cancelled and operations were dramatically scaled down.

It separately announced a P16-billion loan deal from private and government banks to further strengthen its balance sheet during the pandemic.

Domestic airlines were way behind neighbors in the region amid restrictive travel rules in the Philippines. Tighter guidelines were recently ordered due to the spike in COVID-19 infections, further stalling efforts to recover.

Cebu Pacific is in the midst of a business transformation program, part of which were job cuts that affected 30 percent of its workforce last year. There are no current plans to reduce its workforce in 2021, Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing and customer experience, said in an interview earlier this month.