Cebu Pacific offers ‘piso sale’ as it seeks to boost air travel

Cebu Pacific said Wednesday it would have to continue its efforts to boost air travel as the budget carrier cannot afford to wait for a coronavirus vaccine. “I think we cannot afford to wait for the vaccine to get here before we start to confidently fly again because of the impact of travel and tourism on the economy,” Candice A. Iyog, Cebu Pacific VP for marketing and customer service, said at a virtual forum Wednesday. She said the low-cost carrier, operated by Cebu Air, is “finding the right balance based on the information it has, based on the technology, and based on what it has in place today so that it can already start calibrating and moving closer towards where its peers are.” On Monday, Cebu Air President and CEO Lance Y. Gokongwei said at a Palace briefing that the “airline sector is really under severe stress.” “This year, we will lose almost P25b. But I think that’s part of doing business,” he added. Gokongwei said the company’s main priority for now is to operate the airline “in a very safe and secure manner for both its passengers and employees” in order to regain people’s confidence in flying amid the pandemic. The low-cost carrier also announced on Wednesday that it will be offering its trademark “piso” seat sale from Dec. 10 to 12 for travels from Aug. 1 to Nov. 30 next year. Cebu Air’s net loss for Q3 of the year widened to P5.54b from the P375.67m loss it incurred a year earlier, mainly as a result of low passenger traffic.<br/>