Cebu Air Inc., the operator of budget carrier Cebu Pacific, said Friday it joined other airlines in the region in investing in Air Black Box Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.
The airline owned by industrialist John Gokongwei and Japan’s ANA Holdings were the new shareholders of Air Black Box, a joint venture founded by Scoot Pte Ltd. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore Airlines Group), Nok Airlines Public Company Ltd. and VaultPAD Ventures.
Cebu Air is the parent company of Cebu Pacific and Cebgo while ANA Holdings is the parent company of ANA and Vanilla Air.
Air Black Box has built an innovative software platform that allows diverse airlines to connect and cooperate. The platform is credited with making Asia’s Value Alliance possible.
The Value Alliance includes Scoot, Nok Air, NokScoot, Tigerair Singapore, Tigerair Australia, Cebu Pacific, Cebgo, Vanilla Air and Jeju Air. The airlines cooperate across a combined route network of over 160 destinations.
Through Air Black Box, customers will be able to view, select and book the best-available fares on flights from any of the airlines in the Value Alliance, in a single transaction directly from each partner website.
“This allows member airlines to combine inventory and at the same time, cooperate in a broader route network, which means more destinations, more routing options, and greater convenience for customers of each airline,” CEB vice president for corporate affairs JR Mantaring said.
Air Black Box Asia Pacific chairman William Liu welcomed the new shareholders. “Following the launch of the Value Alliance earlier this year, I am pleased to welcome ANA Holdings and Cebu Pacific as new shareholders into the community and to have their representatives join the Air Black Box Asia Pacific’s board of directors,” he said.
Air Black Box Asia Pacific will continue expanding its footprint as its Value Alliance airline customers adopt Air Black Box technology. The company expects to announce additional airline customers in the Asia Pacific region in the near future.
