Airport officials turn to China market to sustain rising passenger traffic

The Mactan Cebu International Airport especially with the opening of the new Terminal 2 has already attracted more tourists and several foreign airlines that have mounted routes to the Cebu airport. Among them is the Chinese carrier, China Eastern (below photo).

China and the Chinese market continues to be the focus of airport officials as it looks to sustain its increasing passenger traffic at the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA).
From January to June this year, the MCIA handled a total of 5.67 million passengers.

This represents a 12.5 percent increase year-on-year compared to the 5.12 million in 2017, a report by the GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC), the private operator of the airport, showed.

According to GMCAC President Louie Ferrer, this increase can be attributed to the both local and foreign carriers increasing their flight frequencies and mounting more flights out of Cebu – most of which are heading to mainland China.

Philippines AirAsia has launched three new routes out of MCIA to Chinese destinations namely Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Shanghai earlier this year. It also added a thrice-a-week flight to Clark.

PAL Express, a subsidiary of Philippine Airlines (PAL), resumed their Cebu-Chengdu service last May 8. They have also been mounting charter flights to Hangzhou and Nanjing starting July.
Cebu Pacific has also started charter services to Shanghai thrice a week and to Beiing twice a week.

“With the opening of MCIA’s newest passenger terminal building or Terminal 2 on July 1, GMCAC remains committed to its goal of making Mactan Cebu Airport as the major transfer hub in Southeast Asia,” Ferrer said in a statement

“We aggressively promote Cebu as a premium destination in the Philippines and proactively support other agencies that share the same vision,” he added.

The P17.5 billion Terminal 2 is expected to bring up the capacity of the MCIA to 12.5 million passengers a year.

It will be dedicated solely to international flights while the old terminal will be for domestic flights.

Chinese carriers

Aside from local carriers, other foreign airlines also mounted new routes from Cebu including Beijing-based Okay Airways which kicked off its Cebu-Changsa-Cebu route last June 10. It flies three times a week.

China Eastern Airlines upgraded its Cebu-Shanghai service from an A320 to the wide-body A330 aircraft starting this month.

Royal Air Charter Service, Inc., the newest addition to the airlines operating at the MCIA, commenced its non-scheduled, daily charter services from Cebu to Macau last June 20.

Ferrer explained that the increase in flight frequencies and the addition of new routes especially to China would show the growing demand from the Chinese market for alternative travel destinations.

“And Cebu has become that top choice for them,” he added.

Passenger traffic

Based on data from the GMCAC, the MCIA recorded 3.87 million domestic passengers and 1.89 million international passengers for the first half of this year.

Domestic and international passenger traffic increased by 10.19 percent and 17.54 percent respectively.

Peak domestic passenger traffic was recorded in May with 760,000 passengers while for international traffic, it peaked during the months of January, February, May, and June with a monthly average of 320,000 passengers.

Meanwhile, air traffic movement also grew by 12.86 percent year on year to 49,843 flights from 44,615 flights in 2017.

MCIA recorded a total of 37,720 domestic flights, up by 12.25 percent from 33,603 in 2017.

International flights also hit a 14.78 percent increase to 12,123 flights from 10,562 last year.

Peak air traffic movement was recorded in the month of May with 6,642 domestic flights and 2,101 international flights.

“We closed the mid-year with a remarkable performance and we are positive to hit the projected 11.2 million passenger traffic this year especially now that we have opened Terminal 2,” Ferrer said.

Marketing moves

The GMCAC has also embarked on different destination marketing initiatives to promote the MCIA.

Earlier this month, GMCAC partnered with the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in welcoming about 300 Filipino-Americans who participated in the 12th Ambassador’s Tour.

Last May, GMCAC supported the mega familiarization tour of top European operators held in Makati City. Organized by the Tourism Promotions Board, the famtour brought together major travel and tour operators from different European countries like United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Turkey to the Philippines.

GMCAC Chief Executive Adviser Andrew Harrisson, in his presentation at the event, highlighted Cebu as a key destination that would be attractive and marketable to Europeans in terms of travel, leisure, and business.

Aside from marketing initiatives targeting North America and Europe, GMCAC also organized sales missions in key provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao earlier this year,

GMCAC and airlines like Air Swift, Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines, Air Asia, Cathay Pacific, China Eastern, Emirates, and Eva Air promoted their services via Cebu highlighting MCIA as a convenient transfer hub to other local and international destinations.

“We constantly explore new markets that have a potential to expand the connectivity of Cebu to other countries particularly North America, Europe, Australia, and other Asian countries,” said Ferrer.

The MCIA is the second largest airport hub in the country. It currently has a total of 23 international destinations, 33 domestic destinations and 26 partner airlines.