Infrastructure developer Megawide Construction Corporation reported a continued increase in passenger and air traffic volume at the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA).
As a result, revenues from airport operations also continued to increase. In the second quarter of 2019, Megawide said the MCIA contributed revenues of P904 million, a slight increase from the P892 million in the first quarter.
This brought first-half revenues to P1.8 billion, 36% higher than the revenues logged in the same period last year.
In a statement, Megawide said the growth in revenues was driven largely by the 10% growth in total passenger volume at the MCIA to 6.4 million passengers from January to June 2019.
The domestic segment, which accounts for 67% of the total passenger mix, went up by 11%, while the international segment, which accounts for 33% of the passenger mix, grew 10%.
Air traffic volume also increased by 5%, with international traffic posting the higher growth rate of 11% and domestic traffic going up by 3%.
Megawide said new flights were launched in the first six months of the year, such as the Guangzhou-Cebu direct link by China Southern Airlines, Shanghai – Cebu of Juneyao Airlines and Cebu-Macau link of Philippines AirAsia.
Airlines that increased flight frequencies were Philippine Air Asia for its Cebu-Taipei route, Cathay Pacific for the Cebu-Hong Kong link and Cebu Pacific for the Cebu-Singapore route.
Additional flights to and from Nagoya, Japan were also introduced by Philippine Airlines. Silk Air and Xiamen Airlines also brought in additional flights between Cebu, and Singapore and Chengdu, respectively.
Megawide holds 60% equity in GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corporation, its joint venture with India’s GMR Infrastructure which operates the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) terminal.
Airport operations comprised about a fifth, or 20%, of its P3-billion consolidated revenues in 2018.
Construction of the T2 was part of the first airport public-private partnership (PPP) project in the country. The resort terminal started operations in July 2018, bringing total capacity of MCIA to 12.5 million passengers.
GMR-Megawide is about to complete renovation of Terminal 1, which now serves as purely a domestic passenger terminal, and is now looking to further expand the airport by constructing an additional full-length taxiway and second parallel runway.
A third passenger terminal building is also in the pipeline as government eyes to increase MCIA’s capacity to 35 million by 2025. (Ventures Cebu)