DAVAO CITY—Cebu Pacific Air yesterday officially started operations of its third hub here, sending three more direct flights to two Asian destinations and one Visayas destination between Thursday and Friday.

Its direct flight to Iloilo at 6:15am yesterday opened the hub “with many of the passengers not even knowing that it is the maiden flight of the Davao-Iloilo route,” said Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing and product.

“There are businessmen in that flight, which shows how business has taken interest in this direct flight from their city,” she told reporters during a news briefing.

The Iloilo flight is followed by an 8 p.m. direct flight to Singapore, which has an estimated flying time of three hours and 15 minutes. A return flight is scheduled on the same day near midnight (11:59 p.m.).

The Iloilo return flight to Davao City is scheduled 30 minutes after the plane lands in Iloilo airport at around 7:30 a.m. The route has an estimated flying time of one hour and 15 minutes.

The Davao-Hong Kong flight will start today, Friday, at 8:40 p.m., with a flight duration of two hours and 50 minutes.

All the three new direct destinations from this city will be served by the airline’s 150-seater Airbus 319, which will be based here.

The Davao City hub of Cebu Pacific will service four domestic and two international destinations. Two other Asian ports, Bangkok and Macau, will be served on connecting flights through Cebu.

There will be three flights to Singapore every week and four to Hong Kong. Davao-Iloilo flights are scheduled three times a week.

Cebu Pacific is already serving routes to and from Manila, Cebu and Zamboanga City.

Iyog said that the Davao operation “will develop [the city] as a gateway to the Philippines, particularly into the southern Philippine islands.”

For her part, Lynelle Seow Lui-Chern, area director of the Singapore Tourism Board for the Philippines and Brunei, said the direct flight to Singapore from this city will help bolster the “good image that [Davao] has developed in 2006, when it hosted the Asean Tourism Forum.”

“Many Singaporeans who attended that forum have high regard of the city, its wonderful beaches and resorts and warm climate,” she said. “But after that [event], we haven’t heard of the city anymore,” she said.

“We would like to invite you to visit Singapore and enjoy the magic that is uniquely Singapore,” she added.

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Cebu Pacific starts Davao hub

DAVAO CITY—Cebu Pacific Air yesterday officially started operations of its third hub here, sending three more direct flights to two Asian destinations and one Visayas destination between Thursday and Friday.

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