Too much noise going on in my head lately– what with the buzz from work (my project’s drawing near! Go go IPAR!). Almost overlooked this new big development in local travel– budget domestic airfare… manna from heaven! I’ve been praying for it for as long as I can remember.
Cebu Pacific, the country’s low-fare pioneer, will offer fares as low as P699 one-way year-round starting Friday, November 11, giving travelers savings ranging from about P1,000 to almost P2,000 per leg.
“We have set aside more than a million seats at fares below today’s fare levels — that’s about 30% of our total overall capacity over the coming year. Of the 1 million seats, more than 300,000 seats will be available at the lowest advertised fare levels,” said Lance Gokongwei, CEB president.
“CEB’s offering of substantially lower fares follows studies that pre-selling seats at lower prices would generate higher revenues andmake CEB financially stronger,” Gokongwei said.
Lower fares would also promote local tourism and even closer family ties since travel to the provinces will become very affordable. “Our new initiative is good for the traveling public, the economy, and Cebu Pacific,” he said.
He added: “This is all about getting people to think about flying. For those who fly today we would like to encourage them to fly more frequently, and for those who haven’t flown before we want to welcome them on board and introduce them to air travel.”
“We recently tested these lower fares on a number of routes and are excited by the market’s warm reception. Now we are now ready to offer the reduced fares the whole year round on all our domestic destinations,’ he said.
Bong Mojica, CEB general manager, stressed the new fares are not promotional fares but a permanent offer of discounts as is the practice of low-fare carriers worldwide.
The idea, he said, is to allocate seats to be sold in advance at discount fares. The remainder of the seats would be sold at regular prices.
He offered the following advice in terms of booking the new lowest fare levels: “The secret is to book early and to also be flexible with your travel plans. If you are willing to plan a month or two ahead and to travel mid-week or on an early morning flight, then chances are you will get yourself a real bargain.”
By selling discounted seats that otherwise would not be sold especially during the lean months, CEB would be maximizing its revenues and as a consequence `smoothing’ some of the demand peaks and troughs of the seasonal airline business.
“This is the revenue model that made many foreign airlines, especially Southwest Airlines, on which CEB was patterned, successful,” he said.
With revenues and passenger loads more stable throughout the year and with extra income from increased flight frequencies as demand goes up, CEB would be financially stronger and in a better position to serve the Filipino public, he said.
CEB pioneered low fares in the country in March 1996, forcing other airlines to do so too. It also was the first to introduce on-time service, e-ticketing, fun games on flights, and flight booking through SMS.
CEB now operates two brand-new A320 and two A319 aircraft and will take delivery of two more A319s next month. Eight more will be delivered next year until February 2007 when it shall have completed its re-fleeting program. The airline flies from its Manila and Cebu hubs currently servicing 14 domestic destinations, Hong Kong, and South Korea.
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There’s actually an existing alternative mode of domestic transport for budget travellers–the RORO. When it was first introduced, it appealed to me on two accounts: it was cheap, and it offered new adventure via sea travel. But it’s been at least 3 years since the RORO program was launched, and I have yet to set foot in a port in Batangas. Boo.
I have this fierce, unexplained loyalty to neighboring regions. Landlocked Luzon has always felt safe to me. It’s my territory. My family is from Ilocos and Bicol–North and South poles of the biggest island in the country–and with Manila as my base, I grew up with a sense of familiarity with Luzon. Road trips were “easy” to plan– Baguio, Sagada, Subic, Batangas, and Tagaytay were natural extensions of Manila. Trips that required more complex transfers always felt too tiring to organize, so apart from Boracay and Palawan, I haven’t really gone outside of Luzon.
Hopefully that’s about to change.
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