Budget carrier Cebu Pacific nearly surpassed last year’s passenger record before the final month of the year, as the airline moves toward hitting its target for the year on the back of increased passenger demand.

Based on its latest performance, Cebu Pacific has served 24.17 million passengers from January to November, a 10 percent increase from 21.97 million in the same period last year.

The airline is just over 300,000 passengers away from its all-time high record of 24.5 million passengers set last year.

During the 11-month period, domestic passengers rose by 8.5 percent, 18 million compared to last year’s 16.60 million passengers.

International traffic also improved in the same period, growing by 14.9 percent to 6.18 million from 5.37 million.

By the end of November, Cebu Pacific offered 28.76 million seats, up 10.3 percent from last year’s 26.1 million seats.

Seat load factor, which indicates the percentage of available seats occupied by passengers, stood at 84 percent, slightly down from 84.3 percent a year ago.

In November alone, Cebu Pacific served 2.14 million passengers, down nine percent from 2.36 million passengers in the same month last year.

Domestic and international passengers both fell during the month, posting 1.57 million and 574,000, respectively.

The airline only put up 2.62 million seats in November compared to 2.83 million seats in the same month last year. Seat load factor was down to 81.8 percent from 83.2 percent.

Cebu Pacific chief executive officer Mike Szucs said the airline proactively reduced flights and seat offerings in the month to preserve maximum capacity ahead of the peak period in December and January.

Szucs added that the month was also impacted by a series of typhoons, which tempered what might have been strong passenger demand.

“These events, along with the challenges associated with re-installation of Airbus software at the end of the month caused further impact to our overall capacity,” he said.

Nonetheless, Szucs expects a strong rebound in passenger demand in the coming months, especially with the holiday season.

“We now look forward to returning to double digit capacity growth over the coming months to align with the strong forward booking outlook,” he added.

In particular, Cebu Pacific is banking on the high demand in December as it aims to achieve a 20 percent growth in passenger traffic for the year.

Based on last year’s record, the target would be pegged at around 29 million passengers.

This means the airline would still need about 4.83 million passengers to reach the goal.

Taking into account the current trajectory, it would appear that the target is out of reach, given that December last year only posted 2.6 million passengers, which was a 31.4 percent jump from the prior year.