Cebu Pacific has shown resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and has proven its commitment to make air travel easier and safer for all of its passengers, worthy of being known the Philippines’ largest national flag carrier.
Almost all sectors were not spared from the financial and economic difficulties brought about by the pandemic. The aviation industry suffered a major blow brought about by the movement restrictions implemented by nations as a measure against the disease, disrupting travel and free flow of trade for several months.
Despite this disruption, CEB has continued to make great strides in supporting the industry and Filipinos across the country and the region, implementing safety measures in line with global standards and ramping up its cargo shipment services to ensure that its domestic and international operations continue.
Worry-free travels
Alex Reyes, Cebu Pacific Vice President for Commercial, affirmed that Cebu Pacific always keeps the welfare of their passengers in mind. This is why one of the first initiatives that CEB has undertaken is to ensure safe travels for all passengers with its multi-layered approach to safety in accordance with global aviation standards. These steps include daily extensive cleaning and disinfection protocols for all aircraft and facilities, antigen testing before duty for all frontliners and crew members, and contactless flight procedures. Each aircraft is also equipped with hospital grade HEPA air filters, which make inflight transmission of COVID-19 low or virtually non-existent. These measures have led to CEB being rated 7/7 stars by airlineratings.com for its COVID-19 compliance.
“We’ve had to change some of our procedures and we’re fully compliant with all of the data that I gave, as well as the Philippine regulations with regards to the safe transport problem. For one, all of our cabin crew are wearing full PPEs (personal protective equipment), including wearing masks, face shields, and gowns. All of our aircraft also go through a more intensive cleaning procedure to make sure that there’s no risk with regards to onboard transmission of COVID-19,” he said.
The airline, he noted, also tries to minimize instances where passengers have to remove their masks and thereby limit exposure to the virus—which is why it has temporarily stopped serving meals onboard the domestic flights.
Reyes added that the airline also made travel even easier, especially amid the evolving travel protocols in the country through its permanent removal of change fees. This new policy allows passengers to rebook as many times as they need at no cost. While there are no costs for rebooking, a minimal fare difference may still apply.
“We understand that travel regulations are changing as authorities try to adjust the policies for the evolving conditions. Travelers and passengers want a little more flexibility when booking a flight. This is why we’ve provided that kind of flexibility to the passengers through our removal of change fees,” said Reyes.
Flourishing cargo shipments
The airline also continues to fly Philippine produce and goods to various destinations—including the UAE—even with the stern movement restrictions against pandemic via its direct flights. In fact, according to the cargo data released by CEB from January to September 2020, the UAE is one of the top global export destinations of the airline for Philippine produce. Of the total 37,405 kilograms of fruit exported to various international destinations, 29 percent or a total of 10,674 kilograms were delivered to Dubai. It ranked second to Hong Kong, where the airline delivered 55 percent or a total of 20,641 kilograms of fruit in the same period.
The Philippine mango topped CEB’s list of most exported fruits, amounting to 27,132 kilograms. This was followed by Philippine lime or calamansi, soursop or guyabano, sapota or chico, and turnip or singkamas at 6,178 kilograms.
“Cebu Pacific was already a very strong player in the cargo business. We were actually growing quite well on our international cargo flows. During the pandemic, because there were a lot of flights that were canceled, we mounted more cargo flights to ensure uninterrupted flow of goods,” added Reyes.
The Vice President added that the airline has invested in reconfiguring some aircraft and turning them to dedicated cargo carriers for free. “We had to work extensively with our regulators, as well as our, our maintenance and ground personnel to make sure that we can load the cargo efficiently, into the passenger cabin and not just be limited to the belly space,” he said.
Revolutionizing air travel
Cebu Pacific has managed to revolutionize air travel since its inception 25 years ago—allowing everyone to fly regardless of their earnings and social statuses. It has served nearly 200 million passengers from all walks of life and continues to get the loyalty of thousands of travelers because of their low cost of flights and crazy seat sale promos.
“If you were a minimum wage earner years ago, you would have to save up, maybe several months of your salary, to be able to afford to travel by air. But with the advent of Cebu Pacific, that completely changed. Now, the same minimum wage earner can go onto our website and immediately book their flight. It’s not a big purchase anymore for them. CEB has made it affordable for people to travel, that’s the main thing that we’ve accomplished. We’ve changed travel in the Philippines,” said the Vice President.
He noted that the airline envisions continuing its mission of making air travel affordable in the next two years, expanding to more cities, towns, and more countries.
“We certainly are super hopeful that we will get out of this, We’ll get back to the amount of flying and the amount of capacity that we used to have before the pandemic. And, when the time is right, we aim to expand our networks and link more cities and more countries to the Philippines, because that’s our basic core mission—to make travel so much easier, more affordable, and more convenient for our people,” said Reyes.
“We’re deeply grateful to the traveling public. They understand that the travel and leisure industry is going through a very difficult and challenging time and yet continues to provide support. We will keep a keen eye on coming up with innovative products to be more customer-focused, and we will continue to provide those valuable services at very affordable rates,” he added.
