CEBU CITY: Emirates’ recently launched direct flights from Cebu to Dubai will further boost the growth of Cebu’s tourism and trade in coming years, officials have said.
The new flights will put more focus on Cebu as a tourist destination and as a jump-off point to nearby islands and beyond, Andrew Acquaah Harrison, chief executive adviser of GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC) was quoted as saying by Inquirer.
“It means that people from the Visayas and Mindanao can easily access Cebu to take these flights directly to their destinations, and airlines like Emirates give us global connectivity to so many parts of the world,” Harrison reportedly said.
The Cebu-Dubai flight is the latest of new flights taking off from the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA). Earlier, flights to Los Angeles (March 15), Taipei (March 27) and Xiamen (March 28) were also launched, the report said
For the first time, Emirate Airlines will embark on a daily two-stop, circular service in the Philippines, briefly stopping over at Clark from Cebu before continuing to Dubai, a gateway to the Middle East and capital of the UAE.
Talks of a partnership among Emirates, GMCAC and the national government began last year, with issues smoothened out by the airline’s existing ties with GMCAC in its airports in India, Harrison added.
“We’ve studied the market. Cebu is one of the markets we would like to go into,” Salem Obaidalla, Emirates senior vice president for aeropolitical and industry affairs was quoted as saying.
His company started direct flights from Manila to Dubai in 1990 and is now considering regional airports as part of its growth plans.
“There is growth potential here in Cebu,” Obaidalla reportedly said, citing that on the inaugural flight alone, load capacity was 95 percent.
A number of its tourist passengers were from Europe, he was quoted as saying by Inquirer.
Obaidalla reportedly expressed optimism that his company could sustain the travel market between Cebu and Dubai—a mix of tourists, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), and business people.
