Cebu Air Inc., operator of Cebu Pacific, is on track to sustain its revenue growth and profitability margin this year, driven by its improved capacity and seat load factor due to higher bookings.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the company said it is confident recovery to positive stockholders’ equity is imminent and forthcoming, given its growth and profitability prospects this year.
“Strong increase in demand for travel is observed through higher bookings. The corporation’s domestic operations are already running at over 100 percent of pre-pandemic capacity which will continue to increase further into 2023,” the carrier said.
The company added it continues to expand its international footprint, especially to countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia and China that have recently opened up and are registering a notable uptick in travel demand.
The carrier said it expects over 3,000 weekly flights in the second quarter of the year compared to 2,600 weekly flights as of the end of last year, going beyond pre-pandemic levels on a systemwide basis.
“Higher utilization of existing aircraft, together with improvement in both capacity and seat load factors driven by higher bookings, support the outlook for improvement in the corporation’s revenues and profitability margins,” Cebu Pacific said.
As of the end of 2022, the company’s net loss was slashed by 44 percent to P14 billion from P24.9 billion the previous year, and its operating loss was reduced to P11.4 billion, about half of the previous year.
Amid these headwinds, the airline’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization returned to positive territory at P664 million from 2021’s negative P8.8 billion.
The carrier’s revenues surged by 261 percent to P56.8 billion in 2022 due to a significant increase in passenger volume. – Myla Iglesias
