The Philippine air travel market expanded 10 percent in 2018 from a year ago, as more international and domestic passengers traveled to different destinations across the country.
Data from the Civil Aeronautics Board showed Tuesday that total passenger traffic increased in 2018 to 54.14 million from 49.18 million in 2017.
Domestic passenger traffic reached 27.28 million last year, up 10 percent from 24.81 million in 2017.
Cebu Pacific remained the country’s leading domestic airline with 12.26 million passengers in 2018, up from 11.95 million in 2017.
Cebgo, Cebu Pacific’s subsidiary, also flew 1.69 million passengers last year, down from 1.77 million passengers in 2017. This was followed by PAL Express which carried 6.46 million last year, up from 5.94 million in 2017. Philippines AirAsia served 4.59 million passengers, up from 3.44 million passengers a year ago.
Philippine Airlines carried 1.73 million domestic passengers last year, up from 1.26 million passengers in 2017. Magnum Air and Air Juan Aviation carried 259,957 passengers and 33,403 passengers, respectively.
Meanwhile, international passenger traffic grew 10.3 percent in 2018 to 26.86 million from 24.37 million in 2017. Of the total, domestic airlines carried 14.43 million passengers, while foreign airlines flew 12.42 million passengers.
PAL was the number one airline in the international market with 7.44 million passengers last year, up from 6.88 million passengers in 2017. Cebu Pacific came second with 5.02 million passengers last year, up from 4.74 million in 2017.
Philippines Air Asia and PAL Express flew 1.72 million and 250,977 passengers, respectively.