Domestic passenger air traffic up by 13% in Q1

Business Mirror
May 14, 2012

DOMESTIC passenger air traffic in the first quarter of the year, aided by aggressive pricing strategies of airlines, rose by 13 percent to 5.16 million compared to 4.57 million a year ago, data from the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) showed.

CAB Executive Director Carmelo Arcilla said the growth was expected as the airlines continued to raise seat capacities and flight frequencies. “But their promotional fares did help a lot. It’s a major factor as to why this industry is growing,” he added.

Cebu Pacific, the airline unit of conglomerate JG Summit, recorded the most number of passengers at 2,374,599 out of the 3,110,870 seats allocated for the period. This represented a load factor of 76 percent from January to March of this year.

In the same period last year, Cebu Pacific recorded 1,948,307 domestic passengers, representing a load factor of 81 percent, out of the 2,391,113 allocated seats.

According to Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing and distribution, the continued growth in its passenger traffic was mainly due to its increased flight frequencies apart from discounted fares it offered.

Philippine Airlines (PAL) came in second with 1,085,533 passengers at end-March this year, lower than the 1,522,546 recorded in the same period a year ago.

A total of 1,471,336 seats were allocated for the first three months of the year, representing a load factor of 74 percent.

Load factor represents the number of seats occupied during a flight.

Airphil Express, the low-cost partner of PAL, recorded 1,069.765 passengers from January to March this year, up 890,384 passengers recorded in the same period last year.

Its load factor stood at 73 percent from 75 percent in the first quarter of 2011. The airline allocated 1,470,228 seats at end-March this year as against 1,186,037 seats in the same period a year ago.

Zest Airways, formerly Asian Spirit, also reported higher passenger numbers at 626,952 from 517,939. From a load factor of 76 percent at end-March last year, this went down to 72 percent in the first quarter this year.

Seair recorded a drop in passenger traffic to 10,037 passengers from 46,879 passengers. Consequently, the load factor went down to 76 percent from 77 percent.

Airphil Express is 99-percent owned by the Lucio Tan Group. PAL, however, is 95 percent owned by Tan.

The five airlines transported a total of 45,742,570 kilograms (kgs) in the first quarter versus 39,806,065 kgs in the same period last year.

Cebu Pacific transported 22.08 million kgs; PAL, 12.51 million kgs; Airphil, 6.09 million kgs;  ZestAir, 4.97 million kgs; and Seair, 67,631 kgs.