CAUAYAN CITY, Isabela, Philippines — Travelers from this central Cagayan Valley province can now look forward to having a fast and more efficient travel time to Manila with almost the same fare rates.
This, as the Gokongwei-owned Cebu Pacific airlines, one of the country’s leading domestic carriers, will now start flying the one-hour Cauayan-Manila air route and vice versa with its formal launching flight scheduled tomorrow.
Airline executives said CEB’s first official landing here from Manila is expected to take place at 9:50 a.m. tomorrow with the return flight at 11:10 a.m., using the airline’s brand new 70-seater ATR 72-500.
From thereon, the regular service flights from Manila to Cauayan and vice versa would be conducted thrice a week or every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
With CEB’s entry in the region, travel time from here to Manila would be drastically lessened by seven hours as compared to traveling by land via the Cagayan Valley national highway.
Besides Isabela, other provinces in the region like Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino are also expected to benefit from the new air route.
“Our continued efforts to stimulate travel have translated to (our) strong domestic market leadership, and we plan to further solidify this position by offering more low fares to the traveling public,” said Candice Iyog, CEB’s vice president for marketing and distribution.
CEB’s so-called regular ‘Go Lite’ fare for the Cauayan-Manila route is P388, the same fare for flights from Manila to Bacolod, Boracay (Caticlan), Busuanga (Coron), Kalibo, Puerto Princesa and Tacloban; and from Cebu to Siargao. – Charlie Lagasca