AirAsia Philippines said Tuesday the volume of passengers it flew in the third quarter climbed 574 percent from a year ago on more relaxed domestic and international travel restrictions.
The budget airline said the number of passengers it carried from July to September reached 1.22 million, up from 180,971 passengers it served in the same period last year.
Load factor improved by 12 percentage points to 89 percent in the third quarter from 77 percent a year earlier.
“International flights delivered a healthy load factor at 76 percent while domestic flights remained very strong at 90 percent,” AirAsia Philippines said.
It said the available seat kilometers, which measures an airline’s passenger capacity, increased by 455 percent year-on-year, while the number of flights flown surged 486 percent.
AirAsia Philippines said it flew to 25 airports, with 40 percent international destinations in the third quarter.
The company said it was expecting the 100-percent return of its 2019 fleet by end of the year, allowing it to increase flight frequency and capacity to pre-March 2020 level.
The airline flies more than 90 times a day to 16 domestic and seven international destinations.
AirAsia Philippines is set to reopen its Taipei, Taiwan and Osaka flights in November.
It said the top domestic destinations booked by Filipino travelers for the fourth quarter are Caticlan, Tagbilaran, Tacloban, Puerto Princesa and Cebu.
It said Seoul, Osaka, Bangkok, Taipei and Kuala Lumpur were the most-booked international destinations.