The combined passenger traffic of Cebu Pacific and Cebgo rose 8.8 percent in the first 11 months of 2015, but the two budget airlines registered a decline in load factor.
Cebu Air Inc. said passenger traffic for both Cebu Pacific and Cebgo reached 16.68 million in the January-to-November period from 15.33 million in the same period in 2014.
The two airlines posted a combined passenger volume of 1.46 million in November, up 5.4 percent from 1.39 million in the same period in 2014.
Despite an increase in the number of passenger, load factor, which measures the number of occupied seats per flight, dropped to 82.1 percent in the first 11 months of 2015 from 83.9 percent in the same period of 2014.
Load factor in November, meanwhile, increased to 85.7 percent from 80.8 percent. The Cebu Pacific Group had planned to carry about 18 million passengers in 2015.
The airline, owned by industrialist John Gokongwei, recorded a net income of P3.56 billion in the first nine months of 2015, up 71 percent from P2.08 billion year-on-year.
Revenues amounted to P42.26 billion in the nine-month period, or 9.9 percent higher than P38.45 billion posted in the same period in 2014.
Cebu Pacific offers flights to a network of over 90 routes on 60 destinations, spanning Sydney, Dubai, Doha, Bali and Tokyo (Narita).
The airline on December 17 launched three new routes: Manila–Fukuoka, Cebu-Taipei and Davao-Singapore.
It is also slated to launch direct flights from Manila to Guam, its first US destination, on March 15, 2016.
The airline’s 55-strong fleet is comprised of 8 Airbus A319, 33 Airbus A320, 6 Airbus A330 and 8 ATR-72 500 aircraft.
Between 2016 and 2021, Cebu Pacific will take delivery of 5 more brand-new Airbus A320, 30 Airbus A321neo, and 16 ATR 72-600 aircraft.
Cebu Air had plan to raise as much as P15 billion through the issuance of fixed-rate corporate bonds in November.
The company plans to use proceeds from the fund raising activity to finance the airline’s fleet expansion program.
A source said the Cebu Air bonds would have tenors of seven and 10 years and be sold to both retail and institutional investors.
“They want to expand their fleet. They’ve been profitable because of the falling oil price,” the banking source said.
The airline tapped First Metro Investments Corp., BDO Capital and Investments Corp. and BPI Capital Corp. to handle the transaction.