Cebu Pacific

Cebu Pacific is the trading name of Cebu Air, Inc., a Philippine low-cost airline listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange under the code CEB and a subsidiary of JG Summit Holdings. Its operations are run from the Cebu Pacific Building on Domestic Road in Pasay, Metro Manila, although the company's registered address is in Cebu City.

Network and bases

The airline flies domestic and international scheduled services from five bases: Manila, Cebu, Clark, Davao and Iloilo. Domestically it links Manila and Clark with the rest of the country and runs inter-island routes in the Visayas and Mindanao from Cebu, Davao and Iloilo. Internationally its focus is now regional. In July 2024 the company shelved plans to expand long-haul flying and said it would concentrate on destinations within roughly five hours of the Philippines, adding secondary cities in Southeast Asia. Earlier long-haul ventures had included Dubai from October 2013 and a run of other Middle East routes that, apart from Dubai, were dropped in 2017.

Regional turboprop flying is handled by the subsidiary Cebgo, set up in May 2015 after Cebu Pacific acquired Tigerair Philippines. In October 2024 Cebu Pacific announced the purchase of AirSWIFT, which served El Nido and other resort islands; AirSWIFT's flights were absorbed into Cebgo from 1 July 2026. The group also runs a small dedicated cargo operation.

Background

Cebu Air was established on 26 August 1988 and received its legislative franchise in 1991, but it did not fly until 8 March 1996, when the first service operated from Manila to Cebu following deregulation of the domestic market. International flying began on 22 November 2001 with a Hong Kong service. In November 2005 it launched a programme that permanently halved its fares, the start of its low-cost positioning. The company floated on the stock exchange in October 2010. Lance Gokongwei led the airline as president and chief executive from 1996 until the end of 2022, when he became chairman; from January 2023 Alexander Lao became president and Michael Szucs chief executive.

Cebu Pacific suspended operations for three months in 2020 during the pandemic and cut around 1,300 jobs that year. It returned to a full-year profit in 2023.

Fleet

At 30 June 2026 the group fleet was 102 aircraft, according to figures from the company's second-quarter investor briefing reported by ch-aviation on 12 August 2026: 60 Airbus neo-generation aircraft (A320neo, A321neo and A330-900), 22 older A320ceo-family jets and 20 ATR turboprops. The airline's long-term plan is to replace older aircraft with A320neo-family types by 2028. In October 2024 it placed firm orders for 70 A321neos, with options on 82 more, following an earlier 2019 order that included A330-900s and A321XLRs.

Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engine problems have kept part of the neo fleet on the ground. ch-aviation counted 11 of 26 A320neos and one of 20 A321neos inactive in August 2026. The company's finance chief told investors that normalisation was possible in 2027 at best and that full restoration could slip to 2028. The group forecast a fleet still at 102 aircraft at the end of 2026, with new deliveries balanced by the exit of older jets.

2025–26

Cebu Pacific has started leasing out spare aircraft in its low season: in June–August 2025 it wet-leased two A320s to Saudi low-cost carrier flyadeal, and from July to September 2026 it provided an A320neo to Vietnam Airlines. In July 2026 it announced plans to fit Starlink in-flight Wi-Fi from 2027. In September 2026 it said it would enforce its existing cabin baggage limits more strictly to speed up turnarounds and reduce delays.