To support its recovery, Cebu Pacific (CEB) has boosted its domestic operations, adding five daily flights between Manila and Boracay and daily flights to Bohol.
The airline operates the widest network in the Philippines covering 32 destinations, on top of its six international destinations.
Starting yesterday (June 21) CEB is flying to Boracay five times daily. It has also started daily flights to Bohol.
“We remain cautiously optimistic as we prepare for the bounce back and will do everything within our control to aid that,” says Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing and customer experience.
“With the arrival of more vaccines and the pace at which vaccines are being rolled out, we are hopeful that in due time our networks will recover to pre-pandemic levels.”
Indeed, carriers' operating conditions will continue to depend on their domestic travel market amid changing travel restrictions as nations work to inoculate their populations, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA)'s latest report.
“Over the last months, the recovery of air passenger demand has been mainly driven by domestic markets that have mostly remained unaffected by travel restrictions. In the meantime, international travel was restricted by most countries and governments are only starting to relax those restrictions as they vaccinate their populations and stabilize the epidemiological situation,” IATA confirmed.
“Our expectation is that in the near future, airlines’ operating conditions will be determined by two factors: the availability of domestic markets that they can rely on and the progress in vaccinations in the main countries in their networks.”
IATA noted that carriers in the Asia Pacific and South American countries often have large domestic markets to rely on, but that vaccination rates remained slow.
CEB is the only airline among the Philippine companies that grouped together to help the government’s pandemic relief efforts under the banner of Ingat Angat.
As of June 17, CEB has flown 6 million COVID-19 doses from China, on top of more than 1.4 million doses carried to 15 Philippine provinces.
CEB has been rated 7/7 stars by airlineratings.com for its COVID-19 safety compliance as it continues to implement a multi-layered approach to safety, in accordance with global aviation standards.
These include contactless procedures, thorough cleaning and disinfection protocols for all aircraft and facilities, mandatory wearing of masks and face shields for both passengers and crew, as well as Antigen testing for CEB frontliners before duty.
On top of these, CEB aircraft are equipped with hospital-grade HEPA filters with 99.99% efficacy, keeping viruses at bay.