Cebu Pacific Group said Monday passenger traffic grew 8 percent in the first seven months from a year ago.
The budget airline owned by industrialist John Gokongwei and subsidiary Cebgo carried 11.5 million passengers in January to July, up from 10.7 million passengers in the same period last year.
Load factor also increased 5.5 percentage points to 87 percent in the seven-month period from 81.5 percent last year.
Cebu Pacific and Cebgo carried 1.52 million passengers in July, up by 3.1 percent from 1.48 million last year. Load factor in July rose 6.7 percentage points to 85.9 precent from 79.2 percent last year.
Cebu Pacific Group aims to fly 20 million passengers this year.
The group announced the expansion of its operations at Clark International Airport with increased flights between Clark and Cebu from three to six times weekly starting Dec. 16. Clark-Hong Kong-Clark flights will be increased from seven to 10 times weekly.
Cebu Pacific said by adding more flights between Clark and Hong Kong, it would further stimulate economic trade and investments from one of Asia’s largest financial hubs to North and Central Luzon.
Cebu Pacific is the only Philippine carrier that operates flights out of Clark and has done so since November 2008.
Cebu Pacific currently operates 21 flights weekly from Clark to Cebu, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, utilizing 180-seater Airbus A320 aircraft.
Cebu Air Inc. earlier reported a net income of P7.68 billion in January to June, up 48 percent from P5.2 billion in the same period last year.