INCREASING Cebu’s air connectivity to Asian destinations remains a priority for GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC), but the operator of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) is also already setting its sights on possible direct flights to Australia, the Middle East and Europe. Ravishankar Saravu, GMCAC chief commercial advisor, said Japan, South Korea and China remain Cebu’s key markets and the airport operator wants to further expand in these destinations. “We want to open more destinations in China both seasonal and regular,” he said in an interview last Friday. In 2017, the top tourism market of Central Visayas and Cebu, the region’s tourist hub, was still Korea. Aviation think tank CAPA Centre, in an earlier analysis, projected more China routes from Cebu by early 2019. The MCIA currently has 12 routes to mainland China, but still with less than half the capacity of flights to and from Korea with only four routes. Meanwhile, Mr. Saravu said GMCAC is looking at services to and from other continents. CAPA Centre earlier said Qatar Airways is already planning the resumption of its Cebu-Doha service , although the airline “has not yet announced a launch date.” Qatar Airways suspended services to Cebu in 2012, when the Cebu market was much smaller. — The Freeman

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