Cebu Air Inc. said Tuesday it expects the delivery of 11 brand-new Airbus NEO aircraft worth nearly $2 billion as it hopes to return to profitability next year.
“We are expecting delivery of about 10 or 11 brand new aircraft next year. These include the 330 NEOs, 321 NEOs as well and 320 NEOs. They have delivery schedules associated with them, and we are pretty much expecting delivery every month in 2023,” Cebu Pacific chief strategy officer Alex Reyes said.
Reyes said he was expecting the delivery of three A320 NEOs, four A321 NEOs and four A330 NEOs next year.
Cebu Pacific earlier placed orders for 16 A330 NEOs, 16 A320 NEOs and 22 A321 NEOs with Airbus. It took delivery of its fourth Airbus A330 NEO aircraft in November.
Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing and customer experience Candice Iyog said the airline now reached 92 percent of its system-wide capacity.
“If domestic only, we are already fully restored. We have been putting a lot of focus for non-Manila flights. For non-Manila, we are 50-percent already,” Iyog said.
The airline flies an average of 355 flights a day, covering 34 domestic and 19 international destinations. This is equivalent to about 64,000 seats offered in a day.
CEB has restored over 100 percent of its pre-pandemic domestic capacity, surpassing the airline’s December 2019 level.
“On average we are operating above 350 flights daily. We are not just on track but also close to fully recovering our network pre-pandemic,” ’she said.
Cebu Pacific is hopeful to break even in the fourth quarter of the year, Reyes said. “We think we will break even in the fourth quarter and we are confident on profitability next year,” he said.
Cebu Pacific posted a net loss of P12.04 billion in the first nine months, lower by 45.2 percent than the P21.99-billion loss it incurred in the same period last year.
The company’s net loss narrowed to P2.5 billion in the third quarter from P8.2 billion a year earlier.
CEB recorded revenues amounting to P37.53 billion in the nine-month period, up by 310.2 percent from P9.15 billion it generated in the same period last year.
