Cebu Air to Serve Middle East on AirAsia Threat: Southeast Asia
This article is for subscribers only.
Cebu Air Inc., the Philippines’ biggest budget carrier, plans to get 33 percent of sales from long-haul flights within five years as AirAsia Bhd. and Tiger Airways Holdings Ltd. challenge its grip on the domestic market.
The airline, which operates as Cebu Pacific, will begin the push in the second half of 2013 by adding flights to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, President Lance Gokongwei said in an interview yesterday in Manila. It will target the more than 3 million Filipino nurses, maids and other workers employed in the Middle East, who generally fly there via Singapore or Hong Kong.