North Asia accounts for 85% of Cebu’s air traffic growth

Cebu will continue to get a boost from North Asia — which includes Korea, Japan and China — in its expanding international air traffic growth.

In its August report on Cebu's international airport growth, aviation think tank CAPA - Centre for Aviation said North Asia accounts for 85 percent of Cebu’s international seat capacity.

Southeast Asia has a 10 percent share, and the Middle East accounts for the remaining 5 percent.

There are currently 45,000 weekly one-way seats between Cebu and North Asia. Cebu-North Asia capacity has doubled over the past three years – from less than 23,000 weekly one-way seats in Aug-2015, CAPA said.

Low cost carriers now account for close to half of Cebu-North Asia capacity and account for nearly 60 percent of total capacity at Mactan-Cebu International Airport.

"Cebu will likely be able to attract some new long haul services, North Asia will continue to account for most of its international growth," the Australia-based think tank pointed out.

In particular, China is a fast growing source market for tourism in Cebu and the Central Visayas region.

MCIA expects five more China routes will be launched by early 2019, according to CAPA.

Mactan Airport already has 12 routes to mainland China but China has less than half the capacity of Korea, although Korea has only four routes.

South Korea is the largest source market for the Philippines and the Central Visayas region, but China has been growing faster.

Chinese visitor numbers to the Philippines increased by 43 percent in 2017 and another 44% in the first five months of 2018, while South Korean visitor numbers increased by 9 percent in 2017 and only 3 percent in the first five months of 2018.

Central Visayas is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Philippines. Central Visayas visitor arrivals increased by 17 percent in 2017, outpacing the overall 11 percent increase for the Philippines.

Middle East capacity is expected to grow by early 2019 as Qatar Airways has unveiled plans to resume services to Cebu, CAPA said. Qatar suspended services to Cebu in 2012, when the Cebu market was much smaller, and has included Cebu among a list of four new Southeast Asian destinations to be launched in its current financial year.

Qatar has not yet announced a launch date for Cebu but MCIA expects Qatar to launch CebuDoha service by the end of 2018. The airport is also reportedly working to secure new long haul routes to Europe from Finnair and Turkish. A new link with Australia is also a priority, with Brisbane being most likely the first Australian destination.

Mactan-Cebu also hopes PAL will resume service to Los Angeles, which it operated thrice weekly from Mar-2016 to Mar2017 with A340s. PAL has been considering potentially using its new fleet of A350s to resume Cebu-Los Angeles; however, it is somewhat reluctant to use the new aircraft type from Cebu because the market consists primarily of leisure passengers, whereas the configuration of its A350s has a premium focus. "PAL’s 777300ERs are less premium-focused, but are too large for the Cebu-Los Angeles," CAPA noted.