Things are looking bright for Cebu Pacific in 2024. Recently, they acquired a leased Airbus A320ceo (A320-214) to augment their fleet. Despite some challenges, Cebu Pacific remains optimistic about reaching their goal of having 91 planes by the end of 2024.
Currently, Cebu Pacific operates 77 planes, including the recently added A320ceo. The total includes 54 narrowbody aircraft (A320/321ceo and A320/321neo), 8 widebody jets (7 A330neo and 1 A330ceo), and 14 ATR 72s.
Cebu Pacific intends to actively pursue the market with more than 100 planes beyond 2024. The airline aims to increase its fleet number to 91 by the end of 2024, which should include 10 widebody aircraft, 65 narrowbody aircraft, and 16 turboprops. Not all incoming planes will be additional to the fleet; some will replace older and leased aircraft.
Why is Cebu Pacific leasing planes?
As we know, there are still issues regarding aircraft parts supply and the Pratt & Whitney GTF problems. These are global issues, not just isolated to the Philippine aviation industry. As such, Cebu Pacific needs to short-term lease aircraft to cover some delivery delays and groundings of NEO planes. While these leased planes are not brand new, they serve as a stop-gap measure to ensure that Cebu Pacific can still meet travel demand without significantly reducing capacity.
An example is the damp-leased Air Bulgaria “albino” A320ceos. They will only serve the Cebu Pacific fleet for a few months, but they are able to compensate for delivery delays and groundings, allowing the airline to operate normally.
We are also anticipating Cebu Pacific’s mega-order of up to 150 narrowbody aircraft, either from Airbus or Boeing. Is the airline already leaning towards a specific manufacturer? Honestly, I already have my wild guess, but I will not divulge it here. Hopefully, we should hear from them by the second quarter of the year.
First love never dies. I fell in love with airplanes and aviation when I was a kid. My dream was to become a pilot, but destiny led me to another path: to be an aviation digital media content creator and a small business owner. My passion for aviation inspires me to bring you quality content through my website and social accounts. Aviation is indeed in my blood and blog!
