Cebu Air Inc., the operator of Cebu Pacific and Cebgo, said Wednesday net loss widened to P14.68 billion in the first nine months mostly because of flight cancellations brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The budget airline said the nine-month net loss was a reversal of the P6.76-billion profit it booked in the same period last year.
Revenues in the nine-month period dropped 69.6 percent to P19.34 billion from P63.62 billion a year ago.
“The overall decline in revenues was brought about by the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak which started with cancellation of flights to China, Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea in varying periods due to the imposition of travel restrictions,” the company said.
Passenger revenues fell 74.5 percent to P11.88 billion as of end-September from P46.59 billion a year earlier.
The group saw a 71.9-percent decline in passenger traffic from 16.7 million to 4.7 million as flights decreased by 66.3 percent while seat load factor declined 8.7 percentage points from 87 percent to 79 percent.
Average fares went down by 9.2 percent to P2,537 in the first nine months from P2,794 in the same period last year.
Cargo revenues were down by 17.7 percent to P3.553 billion from P4.31 billion as the volume transported decreased by 55.8 percent. This was partially offset by higher yield primarily from chartered cargo services.
Operating expenses amounted to P33.064 billion in the first nine months, down by 38.7 percent from P53.939 billion last year.
“This was mostly driven by the suspension of the group’s operations due to the COVID-19 global pandemic since a material portion of its expenses are based on flights and flight hours,” CEB said.
Flying operations expenses went down by 63.8 percent to P8.173 billion from P22.555 billion, on a 43.4-percent decrease in average published fuel MOPS price to $43.96 per barrel from $77.66 per barrel and the strengthening of the Philippine peso against the US dollar.