PHILIPPINE carrier Cebu Pacific (CEB) is lobbying for an open skies agreement to be sealed between the Philippines and Japan, in order to penetrate deeper into the Japanese market.
CEB vice president for marketing and distribution, Candice Iyog, said the airline planned to “aggressively expand into Japan in the future”.
“Aside from Japan being one of the Philippines’ biggest trading partners, it is also home to 350,000 global Filipinos. CEB’s expansion in Japan will allow us to…boost business and leisure traffic,” she added.
The airline, in a position paper submitted to the Philippine Air Consultation Panel in August, attributed the negative two per cent compounded decrease in Japanese foreign arrivals between 2006 and 2011 to the lack of additional seat entitlements.
“An open skies agreement with Japan will benefit local tourism and trade, especially since we believe Japan can rival South Korea when it comes to foreign tourist arrivals,” Iyog said.
The CEB paper said such an agreement would speed up the acquisition of seat entitlements and allow CEB to immediately expand its Japan operations. The airline currently runs a thrice-weekly service from Manila to Osaka.
Japan has signed open skies agreements with Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.
Air consultation talks between the two countries will be held from September 11-13.
