The newly-opened Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) handled 5.76 million passengers for the first half of this year, a 12.50 percent year-on-year increase versus the same period in 2017 – a “remarkable performance,” in the words of GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corporation (GMCAC) President Louie Ferrer.

“We are positive to hit the projected 11.2 million passenger traffic this year especially now that we have opened Terminal 2,” he added.

At the same time, air traffic movement at the MCIA also grew 12.86% year-on-year to 49,843 flights this year from 44,165 flights last year.

From January to June, MCIA recorded 3.76 million domestic passengers while international traffic totaled 1.89 million passengers. Domestic passenger traffic increased 10.19% while international passenger traffic grew 17.54%.

Domestic passenger traffic peaked in May, with 760,000 passengers while international traffic peaked in January, February, May and June, averaging 320,000 passengers monthly.

In total, MCIA recorded 37,720 domestic flights, up 12.25% from 33,603 in 2017. International flights hit a 14.78% increase to 12,123 flights from 10,562 of last year’s first half.

Air traffic movement peaked in May, with 6,642 domestic flights and 2,101 international flights.

Spanning 65,500 square meters, the newly-opened Terminal 2 is dedicated to serve international flights and can accommodate 4.5 million passengers. The new facility increased MCIA’s current passenger capacity to a minimum of 12.5 million passengers per annum.

The development of the MCIA further boosted connectivity as both local and foreign carriers increased their flight frequencies and mounted more flights out of Cebu to other regions in the country as well as other Southeast Asian destinations.

Philippines Air Asia launched three new routes out of MCIA to Chinese destinations – Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai. Meanwhile, it added a thrice-weekly flight to Clark in May.

Philippine Airlines subsidiary, PAL express, resumed PAL’s Cebu-Chengdu service in May 8 and mounted charter flights to Hangzhou and Nanjing in July.

Cebu Pacific has started charter services as well to two Chinese destinations namely, Shanghai and Beijing with 3 and 2 weekly flights, respectively.

Meanwhile, other foreign carriers likewise mounted new routes from Cebu Airport including Beijing-based airline Okay Airways which kicked off its Cebu-Changsa-Cebu last June 10 with its thrice weekly flights.

By Emmie V. Abadilla
Published on July 24, 2018