CEBU PACIFIC Air (Cebu Air, Inc.) is undertaking an assessment of passengers’ profile to and from the Visayas and Mindanao as the budget carrier draws up plans for new flights from the airports in Cebu and Davao. “If we talk about passengers within VisMin, we see the increasing trend and we know there is passenger growth between Visayas and Mindanao, inter-islands,” Cebu Pacific Director for Marketing Blessie L. Cruz told BusinessWorld in an interview in Cebu City. Ms. Cruz said with the country’s gateway in Metro Manila already “saturated… the focus now is to really grow our hubs outside Manila and that includes Davao.” She cited that one of the markets that they have been able to get a slice of are travelers using buses and ferries within the Visayas and Mindanao islands. For international flights, Mr. Cruz said they are more conservative in launching new routes because they want to cover those that are sustainable. “We have Davao-Singapore, the only international flight (to and from Davao), and the thing with us is if we introduce a new route, as much as possible we want to sustain it. That is why it takes us a little time to actually introduce a new route. Davao to Singapore has been operating for the last three or four years,” she said. — Maya M. Padillo

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