Cebu Pacific Newsroom

Cebu Pacific to fly to Osaka by 3Q, offer competitive rates

Cebu Pacific (CEB) will start flying to Osaka, Japan four times weekly by the third quarter, just after it takes delivery of its A320 aircraft this April and May.

Cebu Pacific also bought 12 new A319s with a list price of $670 million for delivery between September 2005 and early 2007.

Bong Mojica, CEB general manager, said Nagoya is just the start of the airline’s expansion of its regional and domestic service.

“As the new planes come in, we will be unveiling new destinations to Asean countries, China, and add more flights to Korea. We are also looking at serving new domestic destinations,” he said.

He said the new flights could use the airline’s Cebu and Manila hubs for the convenience of travelers. CEB dominates domestic flights in the Viz-Min region using the Cebu hub.

Cebu, he added, has become a favorite for tourists because “its airport facilities there are more visitor-friendly.”

Osaka is a prime destination for CEB, being a major manufacturing area in Japan
and a base for many overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Based on official records, more than 170,000 OFWs go to Japan annually; about 300,000 Japanese visitors come to the Philippines yearly.

The Osaka service, Mojica said, is a breakthrough for CEB, which has been seeking flights to Japan for years.

“More flights to a rich country like Japan mean more tourists and more investors, the very people our country needs. This is the role of airlines in a nation’s development when competition is given free rein,” he said.

Mojica said this would generate jobs in the provinces, which somehow would ease the congestion pressure on Metro Manila, create new tourist-oriented businesses, and generate a steady stream of investments and revenues for government and the private sector. “A seemingly simple government decision can multiply its benefits for the whole country.”

On rates, he said CEB will stay true to form and offer flyers “our trademark competitive rates plus on-time performance.”